II STORY 



RES8YTERIAN CHURCH 



"IMORE 



. REYNOLDS 




Class JBX^JL 

Rnnk ,R a. F s 



PRESENTED BY 



31i 




PRESENT CHURCH BUILDING, CORNER MADISON STREET 

AND PARK AVENUE 



A BRIEF HISTORY 

OF THE 



First Presbyterian Church 



OF BALTIMORE 



Compiled under direction of its Session 
and Committee for Publication on its 
One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary 



BY 

WILLIAM REYNOLDS 

A Member of the Session 



BALTIMORE 
1913 












COMPOSED AND PBINTED AT THE 

WAVERLY PRESS 
Bt the Williams & Wilkins CompanV 
Baltimore, U. S. A. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter I. Dr. Allison's Pastorate, i 763-1802 1 

Beginning of Presbyterians in Baltimore 1 

Call to Rev. Hector Allison in 1761 declined by Presbytery 3 

Advertisement of lottery to raise funds 4 

Call to Rev. Patrick Allison in 1763 accepted 7 

Small log church erected in December 1763 8 

Committee elected February 6, 1764 8 

New and larger building erected 1765, completed 1766 10 

Ordination of Dr. Allison, August 1765 n 

Dr. Allison declined call to Pine Street Church, Philadelphia, 1768 11 
Lottery to raise funds to build parsonage, 1771, and pay for ad- 
dition to church 11 

Parsonage completed in 1781 13 

Burial ground Fayette and Greene Streets purchased 1785 13 

Steps taken in 1789 to erect a new church edifice on same lot; com- 
pleted in 1791 13 

Full report by committee to congregation, 1792 14 

Congregation has meanwhile increased from 8 to 160 families 14 

Scotch-Irish settlers in Baltimore 15 

Characteristics of Dr. Allison 17 

His writings 18 

Incorporation of Committee in 1795 21 

Failure of Dr. Allison's health in 1800 21 

Call to Rev. Archibald Alexander as assistant 21 

Rev. James Inglis elected as assistant pastor February 1802 24 

Death of Dr. Allison, August 21, 1802 25 

Chapter II. Dr. Inglis's Pastorate 1802-1819 26 

Remarkable increase in material prosperity 26 

Session organized and elders first ordained in 1804 26 

First judicial case before the session 27 

Organ erected in 181 1 and the consequences 28 

Four additional elders ordained 1814 29 

Same year prayer meetings recommended by the session 29 

Applicants for admission first appear before the session 29 

iii 



VI CONTENTS 

May 15, 181 5, Lord's Supper celebrated quarterly 30 

First Sabbath school is established in Baltimore 30 

Judicial proceding in session against an elder November 1811 31 

Drinking customs of the day among church members 32 

Resignation of Dr. Inglis, December 15, 1817 32 

Withdrawn by unanimous request of Congregation 33 

Election of elders for one year. January 1,1818 ^ 

Charges brought against Dr. Inglis before Presbytery on May 

12, 1818 34 

Proceeding thereupon 34 

Death of Dr. Inglis, August 15, 1819 38 

Characteristics and great eloquence 38 

Chapter III. Dr. Nevins' Pastorate 1820-1835 41 

Call and ordination of Dr. Nevins 41 

Early years of his pastorate 41 

Curious letter written by John McHenry to him 43 

Changes in membership of the session 46 

Lecture room erected in 1819 47 

Dr. Nevins's intimacy with Rev. Mr. Summerfield 47 

His views on administration of infant baptism 47 

Dr. Backus's narrative of great revival of 1827 48 

Decline in Dr. Nevins's health in 1832 50 

Additional elders elected in 1834 51 

Democratic convention held in church in 1835 which nominated 

Mr. VanBuren to Presidency 51 

Remonstrance by session to committee thereupon 51 

Death of Dr. Nevin, September 14, 1835 51 

His writings 51 

Chapter IV. Dr. Backus's Pastorate, 1836-1875 53 

Call and installation of Rev. John C. Backus, 1836 53 

His diffidence in assuming the charge 53 

His description of the committee of that time 56 

Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions organized October 31, 

1837, in First Church lecture room 60 

Four additional elders elected in 1840 51 

Deacons elected for first time in this church 61 

Building of Aisquith Street and Franklin Street Churches and 

colonization thereto for First Church 61 

New organ put in and sexton's green armchair removed 63 






CONTENTS V 

Grandfather, son and grandson fill office of sexton for over eighty- 
years 63 

1848, W. W. Spence and W. B. Canfield elected elders 64 

Introduction of the Scottish plan of systematic benevolence into 

the First Church and great increase of revenue thereupon 65 

Purchase of Madison Street colored church 66 

Building of Westminister church on burial ground 67 

Origin of Light Street church 67 

October 1853 congregation decides to purchase and build upon the 

site now occupied by church 67 

September 25, 1859, last service in old church 68 

January 9, 1861, five elders and four deacons elected 70 

May 1 86 1, Dr. Backus elected moderator of the General Assembly 70 

1863, Dolphin Street Church, (now Lafayette Square Church) 
organized from Mission school 71 

1864, R ev - Jacob Weidman elected assistant pastor 72 

1867, succeeded by Rev. J. Sparhawk Jones 72 

1870, Dr. Jones elected pastor of Brown Memorial Church j^ 

Succeeded by Rev. Timothy C. Darling as assistant pastor 73 

Rev. George C. Yeisly, assistant pastor, 1873 73 

December 1874, four deacons elected 73 

1875, New Church building spires completed 73 

May 1875, Dr. Backus resigned pastorship 73 

Action of Congregation thereon and his election as pastor emeritus 74 
November 1, 1875, committee of eleven appointed to select a 

pastor which did not report until December 1878 74 

Resignation of Mr. Yeisly as assistant pastor 74 

January 1876, Mission school established cor. Gay and Chase 

Streets 75 

January 1878 Mission removed to Faith Chapel then erected at cost 

of $4,000 on the old Glendy burial ground 76 

Rev. John P. Campbell took charge of the Mission after his ordi- 
nation on October 1870 as a branch of the First Church under 

control of its session until organized as independent congregation 76 

Chapter V. Dr. Leftwich's Pastorate, 1879-1893 77 

December 2, 1878, Report x)f committee appointed November 

1875, recommending call of Rev. James T. Leftwich D.D 77 

His election, call, acceptance and installation 77 

Erection of Manse completed March 1881 77 



VI CONTENTS 

Elders elected 1881 and 1883 and deacons 1883 78 

Faith Church completed November 1884 78 

1883 Musical Society of First Presbyterian Church organized — 

its history 78 

Death of Dr. Backus, April 5, 1884 80 

His character and traits recalled 80 

Session narrative, 1886 83 

July 1887, Men's Association for Christian work formed 83 

Hope Mission founded by it 83 

Society of Christian Workers succeeded it, 189 1 84 

1888, A new organ given to church by Elder W. W. Spence 84 

February 5, 1893, resignation of Dr. Leftwich 84 

Action of the congregation thereon 84 

Fund of $35,000 raised 85 

Chapter VI. Dr. Witherspoon's Pastorate, 1894-1897 87 

Dr. Witherspoon's election October 1893, his call, acceptance 

and installation, March 6, 1894 87 

All Members received into full communion required to make pub- 
lic profession before Congregation 87 

On May 11, 1894, Mr. Andrew Reid, one of the committee, offered 
to advance $20,000 for erection of suitable building for work of 

Hope Mission 88 

Gift accepted and building committee appointed to erect the 
building known as Reid Memorial Hope Mission completed 

March 31, 1897 88 

February 25, 1897, Death of Rev. James T. Leftwich, D.D SS 

His traits and characteristics described 89 

Resignation of Dr. Witherspoon, October 27, 1897, to accept call 

to Richmond, Va 94 

December 15, 1897, two additional elders elected 94 

January 19, 1898, committee appointed to select pastor to suc- 
ceed Dr. Witherspoon 95 

Chapter VII. Dr. Guthrie's Pastorate, 1899-1910 96 

Dr. Guthrie's call, acceptance and installation December 18, 1899. 96 

January 31, 1901, Our Church Work published 97 

February 9, 1901, three elders and five deacons elected 97 

April 2, 1902, two more elders and two deacons elected 97 

October 19, 1902, Rev. R. L. Walton elected assistant pastor for 

one year 9& 



CONTENTS VU 

October 29, 1902, Rev. John S. Conning elected minister in charge 

of Reid Memorial Hope Mission t 98 

October 3, 1903, the session established and took under its care a 

Presbyterian Deaconesses' Home at Baltimore 98 

The work accomplished thereby and history of the Deaconess 

movement in the Presbyterian Church 99 

April 28, 1905, the Presbyterian Deaconess Home and Training 

School incorporated as an independent organization 104 

April 25, 1904, congregation at Reid Memorial organized as a 

separate church with Rev. John S. Conning as its pastor 105 

June 1, 1905, Men's Society of the First Church organized 105 

November 28, 1905, the Egenton Orphan Asylum moved into its 

new building on Cedar Avenue 105 

History of the Egenton Orphan Asylum (known as the Egenton 

Home) 105 

December 2, 1906, individual communion cup first used in 

December 12, 1906, three additional elders elected in 

1907, monthly concerts of prayer for foreign missions resumed at 

Wednesday evening service 112 

October 18, 1907, Paoting-fu adopted as parish abroad 112 

February 1908, support of Dr. Charles Lewis, Medical Missionary, 

undertaken by Men's Association 112 

October 1908, Reid Memorial Congregation dissolved by presby- 
tery, and building leased by the committee to the Presbyterian 

Deaconess Home and Training School April 8, 1909 112 

Formation of Reid Memorial Guild for work therein 113 

September 26, 1909, Mr. Wesley Baker engaged for one year as 

assistant to the minister 113 

April 7, 1910, Dr. Guthrie's resignation 114 

Action of the session, congregation and presbytery thereon 114 

Chapter VIII. Dr. Barr's Pastorate 1911- 117 

Dr. Barr's call, acceptance and installation 117 

Changes in the congregation during 3 1 years 117 

Movement to raise a permanent endowment fund of $100,000 

begun in 1905 and finally achieved in April, 191 1 118 

Appendix — List of Church Officers. 



A Brief History of the First Presbyterian 
Church of Baltimore 

CHAPTER I 

dr. Allison's pastorate 1763-1802 

The year 1761 may be fixed upon with certainty as that 
of the beginning of the First Presbyterian Church of Balti- 
more. Rev. Dr. Patrick Allison, its first minister, in his 
account of "The Rise and Progress of the Presbyterian 
Church in Baltimore Town/' written in 1793 begins as 
follows : 

"The advantageous situation of the Town for commerce 
induced a few Presbyterian Families from Pennsylvania to 
settle in it about the year 1761 who with, two or three of 
the same Persuasion, that had emigrated from Europe, soon 
formed themselves into a religious society, and had occasional 
supplies, when they assembled in private houses, though the 
owners were liable to a Prosecution on this account, as the 
then Province groaned under an unrighteous and irreligious 
Establishment for the support of which all Denominations 
were taxed, and the Law required every house of worship, 
used by Dissenters to be registered and licensed. They 
proceeded however in this way undisturbed, and soon raised 
(in 1763) a small wooden building for the more orderly 
celebration of Divine Service." 

Baltimore Town was at this time a small place. The act 
"for erecting a town on the north side of Patapsco in Balti- 



2 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

more County and for laying out into lots 60 acres of land in 
and about the place where Mr. John Fleming now lives" 
was passed by the General Assembly of the Province in 1729, 
and the parish church (St. Paul's Episcopal) was begun in 
1 73 1. Down to the year 1758 there appear to have been 
no other places of worship in the town excepting the meet- 
ing houses, where members of the Society of Friends of 
whom a great portion of the first settlers in Baltimore 
County consisted, from time to time assembled. In 1752 
the entire population of Baltimore County, which then in- 
cluded Harford County, was reported at 17,238 souls of 
whom 11,345 were described as whites, 970 as servants 
probably redemptioners, 571 as convicts, 312 as mulattoes of 
whom 196 were free, and, 4,035 as negroes of whom 8 were 
free. Baltimore Town at this time is reported to have con- 
sisted of twenty-five houses, one church and two taverns. 
About 1758 Messrs. Larsh, Steiger, Keeport and others de- 
scribed as German or Dutch Presbyterians built a small 
place of worship which was occupied by the German Re- 
formed and Lutheran Congregations. 

Referring to the Presbyterian families who, Dr. Allison 
says, came to Baltimore about 1761, Dr. Backus, in the 
Historical Discourse delivered to his congregation on Sept- 
ember 25, 1859, said: " Among those said to have come from 
Pennsylvania were Messrs. John Smith and William Bu- 
chanan, who removed here from Carlisle in 1761, and were 
followed the next year by Messrs. William Smith and James 
Sterrett from Lancaster County and soon after by Messrs. 
Mark Alexander, John Brown, Benjamin Griffith, Robert 
Purviance and William Spear from different parts of Pennsyl- 
vania and Maryland, Dr. John and Henry Stephenson from 



REYNOLDS 3 

Ireland, and Mr. Jonathan Plowman from England." Dr. 
William Lyon who came from the North of Ireland had in 
1 751 already been living some time in Baltimore Town and 
there is little doubt that others of those who originally 
formed this church had also been living here several years 
prior to 1761. There had evidently before this date not 
been enough Presbyterians in the town or its vicinity to form 
a congregation, but there were some there who had for a con- 
siderable time been making efforts to do so. It appears from 
the minutes of the Presbytery of Philadelphia that as early 
as September 20, 1705, it had under its consideration a call 
which Mr. James Gordon presented from the people of Balti- 
more County to Mr. Hugh Conn and made arrangements for 
his ordination among the abovesaid people, and in 1740 Mr. 
Whitefield after his first visit through this region says he found 
a close opposition from the Presbyterians in Baltimore. In 
1 75 1 Rev. Samuel Davies (afterwards President of Princeton 
College) sent Dr. Bellamy of New England an account of an 
extraordinary revival of religion in and around Baltimore and 
said he learned that Mr. Whittlesey, a Presbyterian minister, 
was about to settle in that region. In 1760 it appears from 
a manuscript in the posession of the Presbyterian Historical 
Society that Donegal Presbytery appointed Mr. John Steele 
to preach one Sabbath in Baltimore. In 1761 Mr. Hector 
Allison preached there for several Sabbaths, and it appears 
from the records of the Presbytery of New Castle that 
application was made to it by the Presbyterians of Baltimore 
to place a call from them in his hands. But on the Presby- 
tery sending a commission to Baltimore in November of 
that year it was judged that the proposals were so unsatis- 
factory, that it was inexpedient to suffer such a call to be 



FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 



placed in his hands. The congregation was small, without 
a house of worship, and unable to support a minister; and 
as Mr. Allison had been ordained in 1746 he in all probablilty 
was married and had a family, which would make it more 
difficult to sustain him than a younger man. He soon 
afterward settled in Williamsburg, South Carolina. 

On July 7, 1 76 1, the following advertisement appeared in 
the Maryland Gazette: 

Religion, the crowning Excellence of intelligent Nature, claims 
the Approbation and close Attention of every respectable Being 
who expects future Bliss. We are bound from Principles of 
Gratitude and Interest to promote the Honour and Worship of 
the Supreme Mind, as necessary to our own Prosperity, the God 
of Society, and the future Happiness of Man. Sustained by 
these interesting Motives, we of the Presbyterian Persuasion in 
this Town desire not from Party Views, but from real Principle, 
to purchase a Lot of Ground to erect a decent Church for Divine 
Service, in which we may worship GOD according to our con- 
sciences. Upon Enquiry we find ourselves as yet insufficient to 
raise such a sum as is necessary to accomplish such an important 
design, beg leave therefore to sollicit the Generosity of our Fellow 
Christians to assist and encourage us in compleating a small 
lottery at a time when the Benevolence of our Coimtrymen is 
so well tried in this Way. We hope our Claim to the public 
Attention is equal to any that has sollicited their Notice and 
humbly expect that we shall meet with general Encouragement. 

Then followed the scheme of the lottery which was to 
consist of 5,000 tickets to be sold at four dollars apiece, 2,589 
of them to draw prizes varying from $5 to $1,500, amounting 
in all to the sum of $20,000, and the remaining 2,411 tickets 
to be blanks. The conditions were "that the lottery should 
be drawn in Baltimore Town as soon as the tickets were dis- 
posed of" and "that a deduction of Fifteen Dollars be made 
from every Prize of one hundred Dollars and so in Propor- 



REYNOLDS 5 

tion for any greater or lesser Prizes thereby to raise the Sum 
intended of Three Thousand Dollars. The managers ap- 
pointed are Messrs. John Smith, Win. Buchanan, John Stev- 
enson, Jonathan Plowman, William Lyon and Nicholas Rux- 
ton Gay of Baltimore; Mr. David M. McCulloch of Joppa; 
Mr. George Stevenson of York; Col. John Armstrong of Car- 
lisle; Dr. David Ross of Bladensburg; Mr. Peter Hubbert of 
Dorset; and Mr. Jonas Green of Annapolis; who are to give 
Bond and be upon Oath faithfully to discharge the trust 
reposed in them." This advertisement was published until 
the end of the year or longer but the scheme failed and 
another attempt was made a year later, for the Maryland 
Gazette of July 15, 1762, advertised another lottery with the 
same managers and the same amount to be raised but with 
higher prizes. Nor does it seem that this second attempt 
resulted more successfully, for in the Maryland Gazette of 
June 23, 1763, one of the managers announced that as the 
lottery was not likely to be held, he wished tickets he had 
signed to be returned to him. 

This issue of a call to Mr. Hector Allison to become its 
minister and this effort to raise by a lottery the funds 
required to build a church edifice, both of which occurred in 
the year 1761, and both of which were unsuccessful, are the 
first acts of which we have any record as having been under- 
taken in concert by any number of those who afterwards 
composed the Congregation of the First Presbyterian Church 
of Baltimore. In the absence of certain information concern- 
ing the exact date on which the call was issued we are 
unable to state whether it or the advertisement of the 
lottery scheme preceded in point of time, but the probability 
would seem to be that they must have been nearly simul- 



6 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OE BALTIMORE 

taneous and that the lottery scheme was adopted as the 
most effective means for raising the funds required to secure 
a favorable acceptance of the call. 

In passing judgment upon the propriety of the means 
thus employed common fairness requires us to look at it 
from the point of view of the public opinion generally pre- 
vailing among the better classes of the community in which 
the actors then lived, rather than from that of the public 
opinion which in the latter part of the nineteenth century 
had impelled nearly every State in the Union to abolish 
lotteries and the Federal Government to deny the use of 
its mails for the carrying of any letters, postal-cards or circu- 
lars concerning them. Down to the early part of the nine- 
teenth century and later few people considered lotteries 
immoral, and they were very generally regarded as a proper 
and legitimate means for raising money for religious, 
charitable and public purposes. 

The British Museum was founded in 1753 with £100,000 
raised by a lottery authorized by Act of Parliament which 
designates the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord High 
Chancellor and the Speaker of the House of Commons as 
managers. 

The second edifice of St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal 
Church at Baltimore of which the corner stone was laid April 
25, 1780, was erected with the assistance of money raised by 
lottery which realized $33,443 currency. The funds for 
the erection by the State of Maryland of the monument to 
George Washington, completed in 1826, were raised largely 
by lotteries; and it is interesting to find in the records of 
the Session of the First Presbyterian Church, as illus- 
trative of the change in public opinion in regard to lotteries, 



REYNOLDS 7 

an entry under the date of June 1842, some sixteen years 
before they were abolished by law, that an applicant for 
membership in this church by letter from a church of the 
Eastern Shore had publicly and frankly stated to a committee 
of the session to whom his application was referred "that 
he had been led to view the practice of dealing in lottery 
tickets to be not only ruinous to the temporal interests, 
but destructive to all spiritual growth and comfort, and that 
he had been betrayed into it unawares and had since 
determined to renounce it forever, and would not feel at 
liberty for any temporal gain to engage in the business 
again even to the smallest extent.' ' 

Notwithstanding their having thus failed to raise by 
lottery the funds required to build a church, the little 
congregation continued their efforts to obtain a minister 
and having heard from several of the Baltimore students 
then attending Newark Academy most favorable accounts 
of their tutor, Mr. Patrick Allison, a young graduate of the 
College of Philadelphia, who had been licensed to preach 
in March 1763 by the Philadelphia Presbytery, they 
requested that body in May 1763 and afterwards in August 
of the same year to send him to preach to them. Although 
invited at the same time to become the pastor of what was 
then a much larger church in New Castle, Delaware, he 
expressed his preference to receive the call from Baltimore 
and with the approval of the presbytery, accepted an in- 
vitation to remain with them a year in the character of a 
constant supply, the congregation engaging in September 
1763, to pay him a salary of £100 a year, Pennsylvania 
currency, and whatever could be raised above this sum from 
the present or future subscribers. The connection thus 



8 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

begun proving mutually agreeable, was prolonged and he 
became their permanent pastor and remained so until his 
death in 1802. Dr. Allison says that the infant society 
when he came there contained not more than eight or nine 
families that seemed to be permanently fixed. 

On December 5, 1763, they leased two lots on Fayette 
(then called East) Street in the rear of the present Protes- 
tant Episcopal Church of the Messiah at the corner of Gay 
Street and there erected a small log church, which was sold 
to Mr. Charles Ridgely, Jr., about a year and a half later. 
The lot had a front of 60 feet on the south side of East lane 
with a depth of 107 feet six inches. The lease was for a 
term of 99 years renewable forever at the annual rate of 
£3 sterling and was made to John Smith, William Buchanan, 
William Smith, James Sterett, John Stevenson, William 
Lyon and Jonathan Plowman for and on behalf of the Pres- 
byterian Congregation in Baltimore Town in trust for and to 
the use of the Minister and Elders of the aforesaid congrega- 
tion, for the time being and the congregation in general for 
to build and erect a meeting house, etc. 

Down to February 1764 all church business seems to 
have been transacted at congregational meetings, which all 
the members of the congregation were invited to and were 
supposed to attend. Although doubtless minutes of these 
meetings were taken and recorded, none of them have been 
so preserved as to be now accessible save those of the 
meeting recited at the beginning of the minute book of the 
"Committee" or Trustees, which book begins as follows: 

"The Presbyterian Congregation of Baltimore Town 
feeling the inconveniences which arise in the management 
of congregational matters where the general attendance 




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REYNOLDS 9 

of the Society is made necessary on every occasion, resolved 
to adopt the usual expedient in such cases, viz: to select 
a certain number of their members as a committee (wherein 
the Minister for the time being shall preside) whose imme- 
diate business it should be to direct and transact public 
affairs in the name of the Society before whom their 
proceedings are to be laid as often as required, and without 
whose consent no new regulations or alterations of conse- 
quence are to take place. They therefore convened at the 
meeting House, public notice having been previously given 
on Monday the sixth of February 1764 and proceeded to the 
election of a committee for the aforesaid purpose when the 
following gentlemen were unanimously appointed: John 
Stevenson, John Smith, William Lyon, William Buchanan, 
William Smith, James Sterett, William Spear and Jonathan 
Plowman. The Committee thus regularly chosen being 
called together, the Rev. Patrick Allison, President, nom- 
inated Mr. James Kelso clerk and agreed to meet at Mr. 
Kelso's the 10th instant in order to enter upon Business." 
Dr. Allison writing in 1793 says: " their Secular affairs are 
managed by a Committee who meet at each other's Houses 
in the Evening commonly once a month." As the secular 
affairs of the congregation could not often at that period 
be of such a character as to consume an entire evening and 
as the old-fashioned colonial hospitality prevailing in those 
days required the host to set refreshments before every 
visitor who called, it may be well understood that these 
monthly meetings of the committee partook somewhat of 
the nature of social reunions. From an entry upon its 
records made December 10, 1781, it would appear that the 
Committee down to that time at least had entire charge of the 



IO FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

administration of spiritual as well as secular matters, for 
it is there recited that: "The peculiar circumstances of our 
Society at its first formation especially the small number 
able and willing to discharge public trusts therein obliged 
some persons to fill different employments in the capacity of 
both what are called elders and deacons or committee men. 
But our respectable establishment and happy increase 
now furnish the means of removing this inconvenience. 
Be it therefore remembered that the following gentlemen: 
Dr. William Lyon, Messrs. John Smith, William Buchanan 
and James Sterett, who originally acted in these two 
characters, being previously chosen by the congregation 
agree to serve under the former (that of elders) alone." 
The elders thus chosen were not ordained, kept no sessional 
records and are not believed to have discharged any sessional 
duties other than dispensing the elements at the communion 
and electing from time to time one of their own number to 
represent the congregation at the presbytery or synod. 
Applicants for admission to full membership in the church 
did not appear before the session until the year 1814. 

In March 1765 the congregation purchased from Alex- 
ander Lawson a lot at the northwest corner of Fayette and 
North Streets now occupied by the United States Post 
Office and Custom House, with a front of eighty feet on 
East (now Fayette) Street and running back to Jones' 
Falls, for the purpose of erecting a church and for a grave- 
yard. And in May of the same year it agreed to buy from 
Mr. Lawson forty more feet of ground adjoining the church 
lot for a parsonage. The church was completed in Novem- 
ber 1766. It was a plain brick building forty-five feetlongby 
thirty-five feet wide containing thirty-six pews all of which 






REYNOLDS II 

were promptly rented except two. Meantime Dr. Allison 
had been ordained at Philadelphia in August 1765. The 
parsonage, however, was not built until sixteen years later. 
There seems at this time to have been a small Presbyterian 
congregation in Baltimore County which was to some extent 
connected with this church for we find among the records 
of the committee an entry, bearing date of April 20, 1767, 
to the effect that they engaged to pay Mr. Allison "a salary 
of £150 per annum for three years for the Town, and appli- 
cation having been made by the County Society for one- 
fourth of his services they are engaged to pay him £50 
annually for the same time." In May 1768 the new congre- 
gation on Pine Street, Philadelphia, presented to the 
presbytery a call for Mr. Allison signed by 96 persons. 
There appears to have been some discussion in the presbytery 
about this call but the minutes give no particulars beyond 
stating that Mr. Allison declined to sit as a member of the 
presbytery while the matter was before it. In the following 
August Mr. Allison signified his willingness to accept the 
call but in December declined it. It is believed that he 
was induced thus to change his mind and remain in Balti- 
more mainly through the efforts of Mr. Samuel Purviance, 
who about this time removed from Philadelphia to Balti- 
more and became a member of his congregation. 

In 1770 a part of the roof of the new church was carried 
away by a severe storm. In April 1771 the committee 
decided to renew the plan of building a parsonage as 
previously designed by it, and a lottery was proposed as 
the most eligible method to raise money for that purpose. 
Four members of the committee were then appointed to 
report a draught of "a lottery scheme" at its next meeting, 



12 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

but it was two months before a " scheme" was framed that 
was entirely satisfactory. When this was accomplished 
a congregational meeting was called for June 24, 1771, and 
having duly assembled it was resolved to enlarge the church 
and build a parsonage "and a lottery being thought the 
most eligible method to raise money for that purpose and 
a scheme of a lottery which had been laid before the con- 
gregation being approved of, the whole management of the 
affair was referred to the committee who resolved to 
prosecute the lottery with all expediency." 

The members of the committee appear to have entered 
into this lottery with enthusiasm and to have sent out 
several of their number armed with lottery books to go 
around among their friends and acquaintances to solicit 
their subscription for tickets. When enough of them had 
been subscribed for, the drawing of the lottery was begun 
(under the supervision of certain members of the committee 
duly appointed) on October 15 and continued from day to 
day until completed. But after the prizes had all been 
given out there seems to have been considerable difficulty 
in collecting the subscriptions of some of the persons whose 
tickets had drawn blanks, for in April, 1773, a year after 
the drawing, many of them were reported as still unsettled 
and some remained so as late as January, 1775. The money 
raised by this lottery was appropriated partly to pay for 
the addition made to the church in 1771 whereby it was 
enlarged one- third and. the number of pews increased to 
fifty, and partly towards paying for the forty feet of ground 
purchased for the addition to the church and for the burial 
ground which was leased from Andrew Buchanan in Feb- 
ruary 1772 and the release of the reversion thereof obtained 
a year later. 



REYNOLDS 1 3 

The attempt to build a parsonage seems to have been 
abandoned for the time, but was renewed with better 
success several years later and was finally successful in the 
year 1781, when one was erected on what is now part of 
the bed of North Street. In 1785 the first steps were taken 
to purchase the burial ground at the corner of Fayette and 
Greene Streets upon which the Westminster Church was 
afterwards erected. Up to this time the churchyard had 
been used as a place of burial. 

In 1789 the congregation met to confer upon the subject 
of building a new church and concluded to build it upon the 
site of that which they then occupied. Sixteen hundred 
pounds were subscribed and it was recommended that "the 
standing committee take order for increasing and collecting 
the funds for building the church by lottery or otherwise as 
they may deem expedient." The records of the committee 
show that the lottery was conducted under their authority 
and some money raised in that way, but as the mention 
is rather incidental and no particulars are given it may be 
doubted whether the scheme was formally submitted to 
the congregation for its approval and the drawing personally 
conducted by the committee as on a previous occasion. 

The new church building was to be sixty by eighty feet, 
two stories high, with a belfry and galleries ten feet from 
the floor. Messrs. Gilmor and Patterson were appointed 
a committee to get plans and estimates. In 1790 the 
congregation applied for and obtained the use of the Court 
House as a place of worship while the church was building. 
In 1 791 it was sufficiently completed for use and in May of 
that year after notice on three successive Sabbaths, the 
congregation met to inspect the accounts and adopt a plan 
for disposing the pews. 



14 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

In the following year 1792, the committee made a full 
report to the congregation of their proceedings from the 
beginning, a period of twenty-eight years, in which they 
pointed out that during this period, two church edifices 
besides the original log building had been erected, one of 
them enlarged, a parsonage built and the lots for these build- 
ings and one for a burial ground had been purchased, the 
annual salaries had been collected with unusual accuracy, 
inferior expenses had been defrayed without applying to 
the congregation or to the public fund and the temporalities 
of the congregation brought into the most flourishing state, 
and then went on to say: "As members of the church, a 
connection we value more than being members of the 
committee, we declare our readiness to consult, advise and 
act with our brethren in a congregational capacity on 
whatever plan may be proposed for accomplishing the 
great design for which we have voluntarily joined ourselves 
together in a Christian community not questioning but 
the harmony, candor and mutual forbearance we have here- 
tofore enjoyed will continue and prove no less honorable to 
our reputation than auspicious to our affairs." 

During this period the congregation had increased 
according to Dr. Allison from eight or more families to one 
hundred and sixty families and the growth of its temporal 
prosperity had kept pace with that of the city of Baltimore. 
The reason for this we need not go far to seek for its member- 
ship comprised most of the leading citizens of this town so 
rapidly pressing forward in the path of prosperity. Nearly 
all of the little group which first organized it, and most of 
those who subsequently joined them were merchants of 
Scotch-Irish birth or descent and they were the class whose 



REYNOLDS 1 5 

efforts were mainly instrumental in building up Baltimore 
from a village of thirty houses in 1763 to a city with a popu- 
lation of over thirteen thousand in 1790. 

These Scotch-Irish who played so important a part in the 
development and prosperity of the middle and western 
part of our country for some time prior to and after the 
Revolution were the descendants of those colonists from 
Scotland whom James I had settled in the early part of the 
seventeenth century in the six counties of Donegal, Derry, 
Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan and Armaugh in the province 
of Ulster in Ireland where some two million acres of land 
had lately escheated to the English crown. These Scotch- 
Irish who were mostly Presbyterians in faith had become 
quite numerous when the intolerance and persecution to 
which they were subjected after the death of King William 
III induced a number of them to emigrate to America. 
About 1 7 19 the leases made shortly after the Revolution 
of 1688 and generally running for a term of thirty-one 
years, under which a large proportion of the Scotch-Irish 
tenants in Ulster held their farms, began to expire and they 
found themselves unable to renew them except at much 
higher rents. The result was a large emigration of Scotch- 
Irish to America from whence their former neighbors 
already settled there, had been writing back to them glowing 
accounts of their newly found homes in the Western World. 

The stream of emigration continued from this time until 
about 1782 and by far the larger number of these emi- 
grants came to Pennsylvania. Six thousand are reported 
to have arrived there in the year 1729, and twelve thousand 
more annually for several years thereafter. From 1730 
to 1734 these emigrants settled that beautiful and fertile 



1 6 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

region of the State lying west of the Susquehanna, now 
known as the Cumberland Valley, comprising the present 
Counties of Cumberland and Franklin, the latter being a 
part of Lancaster County, and the Valley being then called 
by its Indian name "the Kittoch tinny." Twenty-five or 
thirty years later these Scotch-Irish began to come in 
considerable numbers to Baltimore, both from Pennsylvania 
and from the old country direct, and their energy and 
industry and solid character contributed largely to the ad- 
vances it now began to make towards material prosperity. 
At the end of the revolution it had a population of 8,000, in 
1790, 13,000 and at the beginning of the nineteenth century 
36,000, making it then the third city of the Union in point 
of the number of its inhabitants which in 18 18 amounted 
to 60,000. 

This rapid increase of Baltimore was attributable mainly 
to the steady growth of its domestic and foreign commerce 
and the success of its artisans in building those fast clipper 
ships which became famous throughout the world and secured 
for it so large a carrying trade with the West India Islands 
and elsewhere during the protracted European wars. Under 
these circumstances the successful merchants of Baltimore 
naturally became its leading citizens socially and politically 
as well as financially, and a glance at the list of the members 
of the committee from its origin down to the beginning of 
the nineteenth century will show that it comprised a large 
majority of the leading merchants of Baltimore of that day 
and could therefore exercise an important influence on its 
public concerns. 

Meanwhile Dr. Allison on account of his own personality 
had become a power in the community. Dr. Backus in 



REYNOLDS 1 7 

that Historical Discourse already quoted thus describes him 
as a pastor worthy of such a congregation and such a 
committee : " Coming here in early youth with distinguished 
talents, accurate and extensive culture, a firm friend of 
learning and order, zealous for civil and religious liberty, 
but eminently conservative, he acquired during a period 
of nearly forty years a reputation and influence second 
to no other in the community. As a preacher he was 
rather didactic and argumentative than rhetorical. His 
sermons were addressed to the understanding more than 
to the passions. Although he read closely and his man- 
ner was not animated his style was yet so chaste, lucid 
and nervous that his discourses always awakened attention 
and interest. It was however in his aptness for public 
business that he stood especially preeminent. From the 
origin of the Presbytery of Baltimore (in 1786) he was a 
leading member of that body being its moderator during 
the first seven years and taking a prominent part in every 
important measure. In the higher judicatories of the 
church he exerted no less commanding influence. Coming 
upon the stage with the most distinguished fights that have 
adorned the annals of our church, the Tennents, Gillespie, 
Bostwick, Davies, Blair, Rogers, Witherspoon, Nesbit and 
others — men renowned for learning, piety and influence, 
'he undoubtedly/ says Dr. Miller, 'held the first rank of 
American clergy. For the perspicuity, correctness, sound 
reasoning and masculine eloquence of his speeches in 
ecclesiastical assemblies he was long admired and had 
scarcely an equal/ Dr. Stanhope Smith, president of 
Princeton College pronounced him the ablest statesman 
in our General Assembly. And the general interest in 



1 8 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

which he was held by the church at large is clearly evinced 
by the important duties that were assigned to him when 
after the measures were taken for establishing the Presbyter- 
ian Church in this country on its present basis, he was 
made a member of almost every committee to conduct the 
business, viz: that to arrange the several judicatories, that 
to review our public standards, that to mature a system of 
discipline and government, and that on psalmody. The 
same talent for managing affairs in the church was also 
manifested in his relations as a public-spirited citizen. He 
was one of the original founders of the Baltimore College 
and the Baltimore Library and united in the earliest efforts 
here made to establish schools. Then too in Revolutionary 
times he was an ardent friend of civil and religious liberty. 
The only writings he ever printed were a funeral discourse 
on Washington and some able newspaper articles published 
over the signature 'Vindex' (which were subsequently 
printed in a pamphlet) against what he regarded as an 
attempt of a sister denomination to be recognized as having 
a legal relation to the State." 

The occasion for writing the Vindex papers was that 
Governor Paca, during his term of office which began in 
1782, recommended the legislature to make some provision 
for the support of religion and a bill which was introduced 
for that purpose was regarded by Dr. Allison, who was 
always a zealous champion of religious liberty, as an attempt 
to have the Episcopal (which had before the Revolution 
been the established) Church, still recognized as holding 
a special relation to the State, and these letters were written 
to prevent the passage of that bill. Their publication 
excited much interest and the arguments they advanced were 



REYNOLDS 1 9 

so strong as to cause the pending bill to be modified to 
such an extent as to be virtually defeated. When the 
Continental Congress met in Baltimore in 1776, Dr. Allison 
was often thrown into close relation with its members and 
so became a great favorite with many of them. He was 
also a warm friend of General Washington and his admira- 
tion for him was so great that when the General died, 
Dr. Allison's health was affected by the shock to an extent 
that caused grave anxiety to his friends. Soon after he 
preached an eloquent funeral sermon on our first President 
from the text "All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for 
Josiah." 

Although his views on the ecclesiastical and political 
questions of the day were very decided and always frankly 
and forcibly expressed whenever he discerned the occasion 
to be appropriate for so doing, they were by no means 
narrow or bigoted, nor did he permit them to interfere 
with his social relations with those who disagreed with him. 
He was a warm personal friend of Archbishop Carroll and 
had many admirers among the Episcopalians notwith- 
standing his ecclesiastical controversies with them. This 
is illustrated by a Maryland Broadside circulated in 1789 
in which the author denounces him for supporting Dr. 
Carroll (a relative of the Archbishop) as a candidate for 
Congress and describes this candidacy as an "alliance 
between the sons of Calvin and the sons of Peter." 

At that time discussions as to the propriety of church 
members attending theatrical performances ran high in 
Baltimore and Dr. Allison's advice was asked by many 
conscientious people. The tradition is that all doubts as 
to his position were speedily removed when soon after on 



20 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OP BALTIMORE 

the occasion of some standard drama being given the 
doctor's tall and dignified form was seen to enter the 
theatre and take a place among the audience. It is also 
known that a dancing master came regularly to the par- 
sonage where he had a class for the instruction of Dr. 
Allison's only daughter and several of her little companions. 
The writer was informed of this by a member of the First 
Church, since deceased, whose mother was a member of 
the class. He seems to have been a very modest man and 
decidedly averse to obtruding his personality unnecessarily 
upon the public, for he directed his executors to destroy 
all his writings. Nor is any portrait of him extant — for the 
officers of the congregation have been uniformly unsuccess- 
ful for many years past in their persistent and repeated 
endeavors to discover one. 

In the year 1792 Dr. Allison prepared an abridgment 
of the Shorter Catechism which the Committee recom- 
mended to be used by the congregation for the instruction 
of their children on Sunday afternoons as was then the 
prevailing custom, and in 1793 he wrote the account of 
the "Rise and Progress of the Presbyterian Church in 
Baltimore Town," already referred to. The original 
manuscript is among the archives of the Presbyterian 
Historical Society of Philadelphia, but is not known to 
have been ever printed before the year 1895. 

In 1795 the committee ordered the two towers of the 
new church to be completed and in 1797 applied to the 
legislature for a charter, which was granted on January 20, 
1798, to the congregation under the corporate name of 
the " Committee of the Presbyterian Church in the City 
of Baltimore" with the right to purchase thereafter real 
and personal property not exceeding in value the sum of 




THE TWO STEEPLE CHURCH 



REYNOLDS 21 

six thousand dollars current money of the United States. 
This sum has been from time to time increased to four 
hundred thousand dollars. A previous attempt to secure 
a charter had been made in 1774, but as this was in the 
days before the abolition of the established church, it 
proved unsuccessful. 1 

In the same year, 1798, it was declared expedient to 
reduce the ground around the church, and in 1800 an 
agreement was made in reference to the widening of North 
Lane and reducing the ground around the church which 
had for a number of years been used for burial purposes. 
The congregation reserved the right to continue the par- 
sonage as long as it suited them to do so, not exceeding ten 
years, on a part of the proposed bed of the street so agreed 
to be opened, and did in fact continue it thereon until 1805. 

Early in 1800 Dr. Allison's health began to fail. He 
became so depressed in spirits that in November, 1801, 
he felt constrained to apply to the presbytery for permission 
to resign his charge and demit his office. To this the 
congregation would not assent but, urging him to suspend 
his labor and seek a restoration of his health, offered to 
secure him an assistant. The presbytery therefore recom- 
mended him to withdraw his resignation. 

About this time Rev. Archibald Alexander, afterwards 
professor of didactic theology in Princeton Theological 
Seminary, but then a young man living in Prince Edward 
County, Virginia, while on his journey home from a visit 
to New England stopped -over night at Baltimore and 
lodged with his friend, Mr. James Priestly, who with some 

1 A copy of the petition of the Committee to Governor Eden with the 
accompanying draft of the proposed charter will be found in Vol IV of the 
Maryland Historical Magazine, p. 228. 



22 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CUHRCH OE BALTIMORE 

difficulty persuaded him to remain in the city over Sunday 
and fill the pulpit for Dr. Allison who felt unable to preach. 
He then proceeded on his way home as far as Alexandria 
where he found the Baltimore Presbytery then in session 
and while there received a letter from Rev. Dr. Muir of 
Alexandria urgently requesting him to return to Baltimore 
and continue to preach there for two or three weeks longer, 
which after some hesitation he consented to do. Shortly 
after his return home he received a letter from his friend 
Priestly purporting to have been written at the request of 
leading members of the congregation informing him that 
they were disposed to give him a call as Dr. Allison's 
assistant provided they could be satisfied respecting his 
principles and habits in regard to the discipline of the 
church, and expressing a hope that at any rate he would 
not go beyond the Confession of Faith. Mr. Alexander 
replied declining to give any explicit answer to the questions 
propounded because he had no wish to be a candidate and 
requested his correspondent so to inform the congregation. 
Meantime two other candidates, Mr. Inglis and Mr. Glendy 
preached in Baltimore, both of whom had warm adherents. 
On January 2, 1802, a congregational meeting for the 
purpose of electing an assistant minister was held at which 
Mr. Priestly read Mr. Alexander's letter and also stated 
to the congregation that he had been brought up in 
the same church and under the same pastor as Mr. Alex- 
ander and that the discipline there practiced was extremely 
rigid, mentioning as an illustration thereof that he had 
himself been arraigned and tried before the session for no 
other offense than making up a company on the Sabbath 
to go next day to see the Natural Bridge. Many of the 



REYNOLDS 23 

people were displeased however that a letter should have 
been written Mr. Alexander respecting his opinions on 
church discipline and concluded that his declining to be 
a candidate was attributable to that letter; and these being 
in the majority carried the vote in his favor although all the 
wealthier and more distinguished members of the congrega- 
tion voted for Mr. Inglis or Mr. Glendy. A call was then 
prepared and duly certified by Dr. Muir who had come 
over from Alexandria to moderate the meeting, and two 
commissioners were elected who undertook to bring it to 
Mr. Alexander who was then on a preaching tour through 
Charlotte and Halifax counties in Virginia. 

The two commissioners having the call in charge traveled 
in company with Dr. Muir as far as Alexandria and at his 
invitation spent the night with him, but after supper when 
warmed up under the genial influence of the good doctor's 
Virginia hospitality they waxed confidential and incau- 
iously allowed it to leak out that while Mr. Alexander had 
a numerical majority of votes cast, the weight of the wealth, 
intelligence and influence in the congregation was against him 
and not one of the committee was in his favor. Dr. Muir 
on learning this said nothing at the time, but as soon as he 
had sent his guests to bed sat down and wrote a letter to 
Mr. Alexander detailing all he had thus learned, and next 
morning when the commissioners departed on their way he 
asked them to deliver along with the call a letter that he 
had himself just written to him which they in happy ignor- 
ance of its contents declared they would do with pleasure. 
The call when presented was declined, but when the com- 
missioners afterwards learned what Dr. Muir had written, 
they were much displeased with him for interfering with 
the matter. 



24 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

In February, 1802, a second election was held for as- 
sistant pastor at which the successful candidate was Mr. 
James Inglis of New York, a young man who had studied 
law in the office of Alexander Hamilton but within a year 
after his admission to the bar had abandoned the legal 
profession for theology, which he studied under Dr. Rodgers, 
and was licensed by the presbytery of New York in 1801. 
He was chosen by a small majority over Dr. Glendy who 
was then settled near Staunton, Virginia, and had been 
warmly recommended to the congregation by Mr. Jefferson, 
then President of the United States. Party spirit ran 
very high in Maryland at that time and its bitterness was 
felt in social and even ecclesiastical controversies as well 
as in political ones. This is well illustrated by the fact 
that a few years later a Federalist City Council of Baltimore 
named one of the streets after President Madison for the 
reason that "it began at the poorhouse and ended at the 
jail," which they professed to regard as typical of the career 
of the rank and file of the party that had elected Mr. 
Madison, and there is a good reason to suspect that the 
supporters of Mr. Inglis and Dr. Glendy were in the main 
divided along political lines. Dr. Alexander in a letter 
written to Dr. Backus in 1847 i n which he relates the 
circumstances attending his call to the First Church in 
1 801 says that upon the election of Mr. Inglis "the friends 
of Glendy, being the Irish and warm democrats, went off and 
formed a second Presbyterian Church and while the Second 
Church was in its course of erection Mr. Glendy and his 
people worshipped in the First Church. " But whatever 
was the immediate occasion of the secession which resulted 
in the building of the Second Church, its actual building 
was in fact but the revival of a project which had been 



REYNOLDS 2$ 

under consideration ever since the year 1790, when appli- 
cation was made to the presbytery to organize a Second 
Presbyterian congregation in East Baltimore. Dr. Allison 
had previously been accustomed to preach frequently at 
Fells Point where a portion of his congregation resided, but 
as the First Church increased it demanded all his time and 
he was not able to go frequently to the Point. In his 
account of the "Rise and Progress of the Presbyterian 
Church/' written in 1793, he says: "It has been proposed 
at different times to form another Presbyterian Church in 
the Town, and raise a separate house of worship for 
which purpose a lot of ground was some years ago generously 
given by Col. John E. Howard; however the design seems 
to be waived for the present, though there can remain no 
doubt but that such a measure must become necessary 
in a short space." 

Although Dr. Allison's health had been at first somewhat 
recruited by the suspension of the more active duties of 
his ministry it was soon found that the relief thus afforded 
was only temporary and before long he relapsed into a 
state of deeper depression and died August 21, 1802. As 
soon as this became known arrangements were made for 
his interment in the Western burial ground at the expense 
of the congregation at four o'clock on the next afternoon 
which was the Sabbath; and the clergy of the city were 
invited to attend as pall-bearers. The churches generally 
were closed and the ministers of various denominations 
were present at the funeral.- It was also resolved to erect 
a suitable monument in the church as a memorial of the 
veneration and esteem in which its first pastor was held. 
Dr. Inglis, his successor, preached the funeral sermon on 
the following Sabbath. 



CHAPTER II 

DR. INGLIS'S PASTORATE, 1802-1819 

It will be seen that during the thirty-nine years of Dr. 
Allison's pastorate his church had from a very small 
beginning attained a high degree of material prosperity, 
thus keeping pace with Baltimore, which during the same 
period had risen from an insignificant village to a city of 
considerable importance. The temporal prosperity of both 
the congregation and the city continued to advance rapidly 
and without abatement for the next sixteen years until 
the time of the great commercial revolution of 18 13, gener- 
ally attributable to the excessive banking and overtrading 
resulting from a long period of unusually successful busi- 
ness activities. 

During this season of remarkable outward prosperity 
of the church which continued through almost the whole 
period of Dr. Inglis's ministry, the spiritual interests were 
not overlooked and although the church enjoyed no such 
revivals as distinguished the succeeding pastorate, measures 
were from time to time adopted which under Providence 
seem to have been efficacious in preparing the way for 
the more favored seasons. 

In the year 1804 the church was for the first time regularly 
organized in accordance with the requirements of the form 
of Government of the Presbyterian Church in the United 
States of America by the election and ordination of ruling 
elders. The subject of the full organization of the churches 
under its care had been introduced into the Presbytery of 

26 



REYNOLDS 27 

Baltimore in 1802 and a pastoral letter adopted urging 
upon the churches the election and ordination of elders. 
Up to this time the delegates that had been sent from this 
church to the presbytery and synod were simply unordained 
members of the committee appointed by that body to 
represent the congregation, although they seem to have 
been called elders since 1781, but no sessional records were 
kept before 1804 when the volume containing them was 
begun with the following entry: 

"Be it known that Messrs. Robert Purviance, David 
Stewart, Christopher Johnson and George Salmon having 
been previously elected to the office of the Eldership in 
the First Presbyterian Congregation in the City of Balti- 
more, were on the first day of April 1804 solemnly ordained 
and set apart to said office according to the provision of 
Chapter XII Form of Government of the Presbyterian 
Church. At the same time Ebenezer Finley (previously 
an elder in Pennsylvania) was also elected." 

" From this time," says Dr. Backus, "the spiritual 
interests of the Church seem to have gradually improved — 
and although this congregation was not then visited by 
any season of special awakening the preparation for such 
a blessing may be clearly traced." 

The first matter that came up before the session after 
its organization was a charge brought by one of its members 
against another of calumniating and otherwise injuring 
the former and his family, but the case was promptly 
dismissed because it appeared by the admission of the 
party complaining that he had not first sought a recon- 
ciliation with his brother privately as directed by our Lord 
in Matth. 18: 15. 



28 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

In 1811 an organ was erected in the church by permission 
of the committee which authorized the alteration of the 
gallery necessary for its accomodation. This organ was 
not bought by the church but was presented by individual 
members of the congregation who also undertook to employ 
an organist at their own cost, but after a few years the sal- 
ary of the organist was assumed by the committee as part 
of the regular congregational expenses. 

The introduction of an organ into any Presbyterian 
Congregation for the first time was, until a comparatively 
recent period, ordinarily the occasion of some discord, and 
while the experience of the First Church formed no exception 
to the general rule the dissatisfaction was not great and 
soon passed away, although one or two valuable families 
left the church. Among these was Mr. James McCulloch, 
who on his departure presented to the Committee a vigorous 
and elaborately prepared protest, covering six closely 
written pages of large old-fashioned letter paper, against 
"the change made in the service of the church by adding 
instrumental music to the worship of God," which he said 
constrained him to perform that duty in the association 
of other Christians, and to abandon the pew he had hitherto 
held in the church to another. 

Prior to this time there does not appear to have been 
any church choir, the singing being always led by a precentor. 
In December, 1766, the next month after the first brick 
church was completed- the Committee authorized two of 
its members "to engage Mr. Lee, our present Precentor, 
as a constant performer on as moderate salary as they can," 
and on the following March these gentlemen reported that 
Mr. Lee's terms were ten pounds per annum to continue 



REYNOLDS 29 

as precentor in the church but they had not engaged him. 
The Committee took no further action at that time, 
probably because they thought ten pounds was too large a 
salary for them to pay Mr. Lee under existing circumstances. 
The minutes show however that precentors were appointed 
from time to time. In 1775 Mr. May was employed at a 
salary of six pounds per annum, and in 1781 the Committee 
accepted an offer made by Mr. Hand Morison to act as 
precentor for one year and allowed him for his services 
a seat in the church free from any charge. In 1803 Mr. 
Allen was engaged to act as leader of the music and to find 
two persons to assist him in the bass at the rate of $150 per 
annum for their joint services. 

In 1814 James Mosher, Thomas Finley, David Boisseau 
and Dr. Maxwell McDowell were ordained elders and on 
June 21 of this year the following minute was entered on 
the sessional record: 

"The session having had frequent occasion to remark 
the auspicious bearing of meetings for social prayer upon 
the religious state of Presbyterian as well as other con- 
gregations, Resolved, that it is expedient to attempt the 
institution and maintenance of such associations and that 
Dr. Inglis be authorized to express the sense of the session 
on this and similiar means of quickening the people in 
religion. " 

In this year for the first time applicants for admission 
to full communicant membership of the church appeared 
before the session and on being received had their names 
recorded on the church rolls, and the session agreeably 
to a recommendation of the presbytery resolved to keep 
a Register of Baptisms. 



30 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

From May, 1815, the Lord's Supper was administered 
four times a year instead of twice as had been formerly 
the custom, and in this year also a weekly lecture was 
instituted being conducted by the pastor on every Wednes- 
day evening in the church, there being no lecture or ses- 
sion room at that time. About the same time Mrs. Stephen 
Williams (wife of the well known Presbyterian City Mis- 
sionary, being then a member of St. Peter's Protestant 
Episcopal Church), having, during a visit to Philadelphia, 
witnessed the happy effects of Sabbath Schools, was the 
means of introducing them into Baltimore. The first was 
commenced by the ladies of St. Peter's Church and it was 
soon followed by one under the care of the ladies of the 
First Church, which was held for some time in a room over 
the engine house in McClellan's Alley, and with it was 
connected a weekly meeting for social prayer. 

At a meeting of the session held February, 18 16, resolu- 
tions were adopted to the following effect: 

"1. That from the success that had attended on Prayer 
societies it was incumbent on the session to use exertions 
to institute others in the congregation. 

" 2. That it was the duty of the session to visit communi- 
cating members of the congregation, to pray with them, 
and to exhort them to set a pious example before their 
families, and to bring them up in the fear, nurture and 
admonition of the Lord. 

"3. That a collection be taken upon the first Wednesday 
evening of every month for the purpose of defraying the 
rent and other incidental expenses of the church then 
occupied by the colored people under the charge of the 
session." 



REYNOLDS 31 

These resolutions figured prominently in a curious 
proceeding instituted before the session in Nov. i, 1816 
which is interesting as the first judicial business appearing 
on its records since the case brought before it as already 
stated when it first met in 1804. One of its members, Mr. 
David W. Boisseau, caused a brother elder, Col. James 
Mosher, to be cited before the session upon the following 
charges : 

1. A breach of the Fourth Commandment by unneces- 
sarily spending the Sabbath at Mr. D. A. Smith's farm. 

2. Treating with neglect the resolutions of the session 
to make exertions in favor of prayer meetings through the 
congregation. 

3. Neglect of family worship. 

The session decided the last two charges imputed matters 
not cognizable by it, and therefore dismissed them, but held 
that the charge of profanation of the Sabbath was one 
properly within its jurisdiction and with the assent of 
the accused proceeded to hear testimony in relation to it. 
The accused admitted that he had spent the Sabbath at 
Mr. Smith's farm as stated, but gave his reasons for so 
doing, which were so satisfactory to the session that it at 
once decided the charge of violating the Fourth Command- 
ment to be not sustained. Mr. Boisseau appealed to the 
presbytery but failed to prosecute the appeal, and Colonel 
Mosher and Dr. Maxwell McDowell resigned from the 
session on January 1, 181 7. 

Towards the close of the same year when the spiritual 
prospects of the church were becoming increasingly promising 
good Dr. Inglis became entangled in the same snare of the 
adversary which had brought that other preacher of right- 



32 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

eousness, old Father Noah, into trouble in his generation — 
an imprudent over-indulgence in the fruit of the vine. In 
order to understand the circumstances of the case it is 
necessary to remember that the drinking customs of that 
day, even among the best of people, were widely different 
from those which now prevail now among us. The use of 
wine, spirits or malt liquors at dinner was well-nigh 
universal among all classes, the clergy forming no exception 
to the general rule. If a man wished to pay a graceful 
compliment to his minister it was understood that the most 
approved method of showing appreciation was to send him 
five or ten gallons of fine old Madeira. And whenever the 
minister made a pastoral call it was the invariable custom 
to set before him a cake with wine or spirits, and offense 
was liable to be taken whenever he failed to partake of 
them. One pastor — not connected with the First Presby- 
terian Church however — is said to have been gifted with 
an unusually strong head and to have made it his boast 
that he could pay more pastoral calls than any other clergy- 
man in the state without exhibiting any perceptible effects 
therefrom in either his walk or his conversation. 

On Wednesday evening December 3, 181 7, at the usual 
weekly prayer meeting Dr. Inglis conducted the services 
but they had not progressed far before it became painfully 
apparent that whether the doctor had been dining with one 
of his parishioners and had sat too long at the table, or 
whether he had been engaged in paying a greater number 
of pastoral calls than usual and was afterwards more or 
less affected by his proximity to the hot stove in the church, 
he was certainly not entirely himself but was plainly more 
or less under the influence of alcohol. This naturally 



REYNOLDS 33 

became the subject of gossip and the doctor, deeply grieved 
and mortified as well as repentant, requested the presbytery 
at its next meeting which was held at Alexandria, Virginia, 
on December 15 to dissolve his pastoral relation with the 
First Church, without assigning any reason therefor. The 
presbytery resolved that, if the congregation, on being 
informed thereof assented, the request be granted, but, in 
case the congregation did not agree, that it be directed to 
appoint commissioners to appear before the next meeting 
and show cause why the request should not be granted. 
Accordingly Dr. Inglis on Sunday, December 28, called a 
congregational meeting for the following day to take ac- 
tion on his application. The meeting having assembled ap- 
pointed a committee of three persons to wait on Dr. Inglis 
and inquire the reasons for his request, and then adjourned 
over to Thursday, January 1, 18 18. The committee then 
reported that they had had several interviews with Dr. 
Inglis and if the congregation wished to retain him they 
did not doubt but that he would remain with them. The 
question as to granting Dr. Inglis' request was then put 
and negatived and he was requested to withdraw his 
resignation by a unanimous vote. 

The meeting did not however then adjourn, but Mr. John 
Purviance, one of the committee who had waited on Dr. 
Inglis, immediately moved that they at once proceed to 
the election of three elders of this congregation, and that 
the elders of the First Presbyterian Church shall hereafter 
be elected annually on the first day of the year and continue 
to exercise the duties enjoined on them by the Form of 
Government and Discipline of the Presbyterian Church 
for one year and until a new election shall take place, and 



34 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

if any vacancy shall happen by death, resignation or other- 
wise, the remaining elders for the time being may supply 
the vacancy. This resolution was adopted with but a single 
dissenting vote after an amendment making the number 
of elders to be elected five instead of three. The meeting 
then proceeded to elect them and Messrs. Robert Gilmor 
Jr., William Taylor, James Mosher, Thomas Finley and 
John McKean were chosen. Of these the two last, who 
were already acting elders, refused to accept the new 
election, and Mr. Robert Gilmor, Jr., one of the two elected 
to the office for the first time, declined to serve, which left 
Colonel Mosher, who had been an elder before but had 
resigned in 1817, and Mr. William Taylor, the other newly 
elected elder, the only members of the session. 

The Committee appointed to confer with Dr. Inglis were 
then requested to inform him of the proceedings of the 
meeting, which they did at once and reported that he had 
consented to continue to act as their pastor. 

At a meeting of the presbytery held May 12, 1818, at 
Fredericktown, a letter dated May 11 from David W. 
Boisseau an elder of the First Church, was laid before the 
presbytery, charging Rev. James Inglis, D.D., with habitual 
intoxication, but more especially with being intoxicated on 
the night of Wednesday December 3, 181 7, at a prayer meet- 
ing then conducted by him, and named as witnesses eleven 
persons who were then present. Dr. Inglis rose in his 
place and acknowledged the charge to be true, but at the 
same time declared that he believed he had lately broken 
off every act which could contradict the assurance now 
made of his deep humility and determination for the 
future to avoid offensive conduct. The matter was then 



REYNOLDS 35 

laid over until the next meeting of presbytery. Other charges 
were presented against Dr. Inglis at the same meeting by 
Stewart Brown, John Finley, David W. Boisseau and James 
McKean, the four elders who were ejected from office by 
the action of the meeting of January i, 1818, already 
referred to. These additional charges were: 

1. Anti-Presbyterian conduct in giving sanction to the 
discharge of them as elders of this church without any 
charge of misconduct being either proved or alleged against 
them. 

2. A breach of ministerial duty in re-ordaining an elder 
on January n 3 1818, whom he had previously ordained 
and who had acted in that capacity anterior to his second 
ordination. 

The presbytery adjourned over to June n when it met 
at Baltimore and proceeded with the trial of the charges 
against Dr. Inglis. 

The charge of giving sanction to the discharge of his 
elders was dismissed as not supported by proof, and a 
verdict of not guilty rendered upon that of re-ordaining an 
elder. The charge of intoxication was then taken up and 
evidence heard of it. This included a letter from Dr. Inglis 
denying that the statement made by him before the presby- 
tery at its last meeting was a confession of his having been 
guilty of habitual intoxication which he emphatically 
repudiated, and explaining that it referred solely to the 
single occurrence of December 3. There was also a protest 
dated June 3, 1818, signed by 86 members and pew-holders 
of the First Church which declared that "the prosecutor 
at the time of making the accusation was well aware that 
the unhappy circumstances which gave rise to it had been 



36 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

deeply deplored by the accused who had made all the repa- 
ration for the injury done to the sacred character in public 
estimation that his congregation had the right to expect, 
and had manifested that profound repentance which the pre- 
cepts of our Divine religion require, and which is the highest 
ornament of the Christian profession," and it then went on 
to express emotions of surprise and indignation at an accu- 
sation brought forward at this period of time " without the 
slightest sanction of the congregation by a person, a com- 
parative stranger among them and usurping as they humbly 
conceived an unwarrantable right to interfere in the affairs 
of the church." 

There was also presented to the presbytery a letter with- 
out date from Mr. Boisseau to Dr. Inglis in which he 
complained of the removal of the doctor's son from his 
school without cause as "an additional link in the chain of 
unmanly persecution commenced some time since, a perse- 
cution which may lead to the disclosure of facts not very 
pleasant to yourself or family," and concluded, "For your 
family's sake I advise you to beware." 

From all this it is apparent that the congregation generally 
were disposed to look upon the occurrence at the prayer meet- 
ing in the light of an unfortunate accident, liable to happen 
to any gentleman, though of such a character that in view 
of the scandal to which it gave rise in the case of a minister, 
it imposed upon him the duty of thereafter taking every 
precaution to prevent the possibility of its recurrence, and 
that they regarded the prosecution of the matter before 
the presbytery more than four months after it had been 
amicably settled between the doctor and his congregation 
as unjustifiable, and dictated wholly by personal malice 



REYNOLDS 37 

and ill will on the part of the prosecutor. As Dr. Backus 
remarks, "this occurrence which cast a shade over the last 
days of Dr. Inglis' ministry never interrupted for a moment 
the affection of his congregation." 

The members of the presbytery while apparently unwill- 
ing fully to endorse these views by their official action seem 
nevertheless to have personally sympathized with them to 
some extent, for while excluding Mr. Boisseau's letter from 
evidence as irrevelant they nevertheless permitted it to be 
spread upon their minutes, and finally disposed of the case 
by directing that Dr. Inglis "be called before the presbytery 
and receive an admonition from the Moderator for his 
aberration from the rule of rectitude, and that he submit to 
an exhortation to proceed in the exercise of his ministerial 
office with renewed zeal and unusual circumspection and 
dependence on his God and Saviour' ' — which was accord- 
ingly done on June 12, 18 18. And we find that he was 
elected moderator of the presbytery within a year. 

At a subsequent meeting held October 27, 1818, the 
presbytery took up the question as to what should be done 
in relation to the election of elders by the Congregation 
of the First Church on January 1 of that year, and referred 
the papers to the Synod, which sent them back to the 
presbytery with instructions to prosecute the business as 
speedily as possible. At a meeting held at Baltimore on 
May 11, 18 19, of which Dr. Inglis was Moderator, the 
Congregation of the First Church having been duly cited 
appeared by Commissioners, and the presbytery after a full 
hearing arrived at the conclusion that "said congregation 
of the city of Baltimore have not in the opinion of Pres- 
bytery from any evidence now before them either violated 



38 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

or exceeded the liberty which is given to them or to all 
churches or congregations by the book of Discipline and 
Form of Government of the Presbyterian Church except 
in attempting to give authority to the Elders to supply any 
vacancy which might occur among them." But against 
this decision a protest was entered. 

When the minutes of the presbytery were reviewed by 
the Synod on October 29, 1819, this decision was disapproved 
as warranting a proceeding "at variance with the uniform 
usage of the Presbyterian Church and contrary to the 
provisions of the Form of Government fairly interpreted 
and correctly understood." No further action seems to 
have been taken thereafter by anybody upon the matter, 
but the congregation never again undertook to elect elders 
to serve for a yearly term, and those already elected 
continued to serve without reelection. The question thus 
raised was finally disposed of by the amendment of the 
form of Government adopted May, 1875, making it optional 
for any congregation to elect its elders to serve for a lim- 
ited time of not less than three years. 

In the year 18 18 the parsonage which stood on Fayette 
Street east of the church was taken down in order to open 
North Street, which had previously been an alley, and a 
new parsonage was built in the rear of the church fronting 
on North Street but Dr. Inglis did not live to occupy it 
for he died suddenly on Sunday morning, August 15, 18 19. 

Of him Dr. Backus says: "He was one of the most popular 
preachers of his day." Mr. Jonathan Meredith, long one of 
our leading lawyers, says: "He was largely gifted with 
many of the essential gifts of oratorical power, his voice 
was full, clear and capable of great varieties of modulation. 






REYNOLDS 39 

His enunciation was deliberate and distinct, his action 
subdued but graceful, always appropriate and seemingly 
unstudied. His whole manner was eminently dignified 
and impressive. He was accounted a sound theologian, 
a good classical scholar and familiar with the best English 
literature. He usually preached with his sermon before 
him but did not confine himself to it, the most striking and 
eloquent passages being evidently extemporaneous." Dr. 
Backus adds: "His style was exceedingly concise, but 
clear and eloquent. Dr. Dwight spoke of him to his class 
in rhetoric as the most signal instance of precision in style 
that he had ever met. He possessed in a preeminent degree 
the talent of so managing his voice as to produce the most 
profound impressions with the simplest sentences. Those 
who were accustomed to hear him testify that no adequate 
conception can be found of the effect of his preaching from 
his published discourses. Dr. Sprague represents him as 
one of the most eloquent preachers to whom he had ever 
listened. Anecdotes are related of his eloquence that seem 
almost incredible. In private intercourse he was cheerful, 
affable and eminently agreeable. He shone in conversation 
and was full of amusing anecdotes. In the sick room he 
was extremely tender and faithful, and peculiarly appro- 
priate and happy in devotional exercises. Such indeed was 
his general character, such his power of attracting and 
influencing others, that the devotion of his people amounted 
almost to idolatry." 

After Dr. Inglis's death the pulpit remained vacant for 
about a year. During this time the attention of the 
congregation had been directed to the Rev. Sylvester 
Larned, Rev. Matthew Bruen and Rev. William Nevins, 



40 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

and so strong were the predilections of the respective 
friends of these two gentlemen that the first election lasted 
two days. It resulted in the choice of Rev. Mr. Larned, 
then recently settled in New Orleans, who although much 
gratified at the call felt constrained by a sense of duty to 
decline it and retain the charge he had already assumed. 
At the second election Mr. Nevins was chosen by a large 
majority and he accepted and came to Baltimore in October 
1820. 






CHAPTER III 

DR. NEVINS'S PASTORATE 1820-1835 

Rev. William Nevins was born in Norwich, Connecticut, 
October 17, 1777. At an early age he applied himself to 
commercial pursuits, but soon abandoned them for a liberal 
education and entered Yale college where he became hope- 
fully converted. On leaving college he entered the Theo- 
logical seminary at Princeton, New Jersey, and after a 
regular course of study, was licensed to preach the gospel 
by the Association of New London, Connecticut, in Sep- 
tember 1 8 19. He labored a short time in Richmond, Vir- 
ginia, before coming to Baltimore. Dr. Backus character- 
izes the period of his ministry as one of gracious revival. 
"The rapid growth, the unexampled prosperity of Baltimore 
during the period we have just reviewed, led, as has often 
been the case, to that excessive banking and over trading 
which soon involved the community in one of those great 
commercial revulsions which spread devastation and 
distress so widely over the land. This happened in 18 18 
not long before the death of Dr. Inglis. The value of real- 
estate was greatly reduced and the aspect of the city is 
said to have given evident marks of decline. This no 
doubt had its influence in the wise over-ruling of Divine 
Providence as we have seen a similar state of things 
recently, in impressing the minds of men with a sense of 
the vanity of the world and the importance of eternal 
interests, and thus in preparing the way for those gracious 

41 



42 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OE BALTIMORE 

visitations that distinguished the period we are now con- 
sidering/ ' 

The consequences of that commercial revulsion had not 
entirely passed away when Dr. Nevins came to Baltimore 
in October 1820. During the first year of his ministry 
here," continues Dr. Backus, " there was nothing remark- 
able in the results of his labors. Possessing a brilliant 
imagination, a sound judgment, a refined taste, warm affec- 
tions and an ardent temperament his pulpit performances 
attracted general admiration and proved highly gratifying 
to an intelligent congregation. In his social intercourse 
there was a frankness and guilelessness, a ready sympathy 
with others that rapidly endeared him to all classes of his 
flock. A somewhat variable temperament and a manner 
marked by great simplicity, playfulness and wit led some 
who met him only casually at this time, and became 
subsequently better acquainted with him, to suppose that 
his religious character underwent a very important change 
after the first few years of his ministry. And, unquestionably 
his settlement in life, increasing years, the responsibilities 
of so important a charge, and above all, divine grace 
gradually sobered his feelings and led to a more rapid 
developement of his religious character. But those who 
knew him most intimately at an earlier period, had per- 
ceived from the first, evidence of the same views and experi- 
ences that characterized him at the later period. 'No one/ 
says Dr. Sprague, 'could hear him pray in the seminary, 
without being convinced that his utterances were from a 
heart accustomed alike to self-communion and godly 
sorrow.' " 

A curious document found among the papers of Dr. James 



REYNOLDS 43 

McHenry, a member of the committee who served from 1810 
to 1 81 6, whose son was perhaps the most intimate personal 
friend that Dr. Nevins had in Baltimore, strongly corrobo- 
rates what Dr. Backus says about that side of his person- 
ality, described as "a manner marked by great simplicity, 
playfulness and wit." 

The paper in question is in the handwriting of Dr. Mc- 
Henry's son and seems to be either the rough draft or a 
copy of a letter intended to be mailed anonymously to Dr. 
Nevins and designed as a piece of good natured satire upon 
some anonymous criticisms which had evidently been sent 
to the Doctor in all seriousness through the mails, and 
which had been shown to his friend McHenry and over 
which they had probably both enjoyed a hearty laugh. 
The fact that the letter was sent by such an intimate friend 
as McHenry shows how confident the latter must have been 
that Dr. Nevins would understand and take it in good part 
and that its effect would be to amuse and not to wound 
him. The letter is as follows: 

Sir: — In exercising the manly, fair and just and dignifying 
right of saying what I please, to whom I please and under any 
form which pleases me, I cannot indulge you with an apology for 
occasioning the trouble of reading this letter. In fact, having 
your interest solely at heart, I feel irresistibly urged to lay before 
you a plain statement of facts, which it is hoped, will greatly 
influence your future behaviour. You have lately received an 
anonymous communication on the subject of pastoral conduct 
and conversation. Knowing your extreme sensitiveness, I am 
satisfied that the said anonymous letter has produced the desired 
effect, and its influence has been stronger on account of the 
irresponsibility of its author. . Encouraged by his success, finding 
you so sensible of your own faults and so willing to amend them, 
and, withal, so excitable by anything without a name, I have 
felt it to be my duty, or rather my pleasure, to lay before you a 



44 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

short list of a very few of the excessively great and numerous 
grievances under which we have all been suffering since your 
arrival amongst us. Weigh them well, relieve us from them, or 
cease to hope for a full congregation. For this is the alternative, 
unless indeed you succeed in making us in all things just as you 
are yourself. We would much rather make you like one of us. 

But to proceed to the important business in hand. In the 
first place, neither of your predecessors ever ascended the pulpit 
by the stairs which you most vexatiously and perseveringly use, 
but always mounted the E. flight. It does not matter at all that 
there were then two gates as well as doors to the church and that 
the parsonage house was on the east of the eastern gate. This 
contravention of established custom evinces on your part, a 
spirit of innovation and a virtual condemnation of the founders 
of our church, by a refusal to walk in their footsteps. Secondly, 
we are at the expense of furnishing all the pulpit decorating, it 
would be becoming in you to consider this and avoid such con- 
tinual pounding, whilst in the heat and fury of discourse, as 
necessarily wears the napping off. Under this head I would also 
condemn the unnatural elevation of your head, in your fervent 
moods, when the features are distorted horribly, and the throat 
and windpipe so contracted that the hottest words can scarcely 
burn their way out. That handkerchief, besides, gives you and 
us a great deal of trouble and uneasiness, I think you had better 
wipe your face and blow your nose at home, or let the sexton 
stand by to hold this part of your sermon. Duplicates of your 
slip of notes, would be desirable, for then Mr. Meredith's little 
son would not have the trouble of picking them up so often. 
Besides he may be absent from Church Sometimes, and then it 
would be very unseemly undignified in you to leave the P. to pick 
up a scrap of paper. 

You have no right to object to any attitude which may be pre- 
ferred by the several members of your Cong. Immemorial usage 
has established the privilege of the people to stand, sit, loll, 
lounge, talk, laugh and sleep during service. My advice, on this 
subject, is that you preach very short sermons, say 15 minutes; 
for time must be given to all to remark upon the occurrences of 
the day and past week, the changes which fashion has brought 
about, the good and bad bargains made and perhaps to drive one if 
opportunity permits, the new lamps, the last prayer meeting, etc. 



REYNOLDS 45 

Now not more than ten minutes will be required for this part 
of divine service; five, of course will be left for the preacher, 
during which he ought to be very active and interesting, or else 
never complain of the people holding down their heads. Why, 
sir, within the recollection of many of us, in this very church, 
after the text and division of the discourse, there were always 
more heads down than up. Five minutes are a very long time, 
sir, particularly if the week has been a busy one. Many of us 
are up late at balls, plays, cards etc., and find a little slumber, 
induced by a well kept up monotony of sounds, greatly refreshing. 
The Sabbath is a day of rest to all, and this rest to which your 
people have the right, should not be invaded by any loud and 
harsh noises, by suddenly stopping to take a drink of water, (I 
suppose it is water under your pulpit,) or examine your notes, 
or by talking too seriously about sin, repentance, or damnation 
and the things of another life, with which, having a great deal 
to do here, we do not wish to concern ourselves. Those of 
my opinion constitute the great majority of your congregation. 
You are employed and are paid, sir, by the majority who have 
the right to dictate to you and are determined to so do, since 
they have found you willing to listen; and they expect to be 
treated according to custom with dainties and luxuries, leaving 
the loaves and fishes, the sackcloth and ashes to the more humble 
minority. We shall be always glad to see you at our houses, to 
crack a bottle or toss a bumper, but dont come there preaching. 
You may carry your song and sanctity to the poor minority, for 
this we are not used to, your business is to please Man, and you 
are to try to please everybody. You must make yourself a very 
Proteus. 

These few T hints are thrown out for your good. If they be 
taken and some amendment follow them, the list shall be continued 
from time to time until a new leaf is turned over by you. I 
shall then brag most valiantly of the hand which I had in the 
reformation of my Pastor. 

No. 1 of a series of friendly epistles. 

M. 

This is interesting as Showing that more than ninety 
years ago there were to be found in the First Church some 
good people so intensely conservative in regard to every 



46 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

thing connected with its accustomed manner of conducting 
services on the Lord's Day, that they were inclined to 
resent almost as an act of heresy anything resembling the 
slightest deviation by their new minister from the ways 
and manner of his predecessors even in the most insigni- 
ficant particulars, and to make it a subject for serious 
complaint and criticism to him, and it is also gratifying to 
know that while Dr. Nevins' sense of humor could not fail 
to show him the utter absurdity of many of these criticisms, 
he was nevertheless inclined to receive them in a spirit 
of good natured toleration and amusement. 

It is not of course to be supposed that any criticisms 
actually made in the letters seriously sent to Dr. Nevins 
were quite as absurd as those in Mr. McHenry ? s letter, 
but there is probably little doubt that some of them bore 
a strong likeness at least to the specimens therein collected. 

It may also be added that there is good reason for believe 
that on more than one occasion complaints and remon- 
strances have been made both orally and in writing to 
certain of Dr. Nevins's successors in regard to the intro- 
duction of novelties into the church and that while these 
remonstrances have not always prevailed, they have nev- 
ertheless been generally received in a spirit of becoming 
meekness and have been given due consideration and 
weight. 

As already stated, the effect of the election of new elders 
on January i, 1818, was to reduce the session to two elders, 
Col. James Mosher and Mr. Wm. Taylor. In 1819 Mr. 
James Delacroix was elected but he served only until 1822, 
from which time Colonel Mosher and Mr. Taylor continued 
the only elders down to 1829, when Dr. Maxwell McDowell, 



REYNOLDS 47 

who had resigned in 1817, and Mr. George Morris, pre- 
viously an elder in one of the Presbyterian Churches in 
Philadelphia, were elected. Mr. Taylor resigned the same 
year and died shortly afterwards. 

Dr. Nevins early in his ministry revived the weekly lecture 
and prayer meeting which were discontinued about the 
time of Dr. Inglis's death and also arranged more private 
meetings for special prayer. The lecture room was erected 
and the Sabbath school removed to it. In 1819 the Third 
Presbyterian Church was organized in Baltimore and 
enjoyed the ministrations of pastors who, if not always 
judicious in the measures they employed, had yet conceived 
a strong desire to promote a true revival of religion, such 
as about this time began to be enjoyed in various parts of 
the country. In the District of Columbia which was 
embraced in the presbytery of Baltimore, the churches 
seem to have greatly awakened. In the spring of 1825, 
Dr. John Breckenridge became the pastor of the Second 
Presbyterian Church, and after a short time united with 
Dr. Nevins in establishing a Bible Class embracing a large 
number of young man of both congregations, most of whom 
subsequently became subjects of the revival in 1827. 

In March 1824 the General Conference of the Methodist 
Church appointed the Rev. Mr. Summerfield as a Mission- 
ary in Baltimore where he labored during the winter of 
1824-25 and produced a profound sensation. With this 
memorable man Mr. Nevins formed a close intimacy which 
he ever afterwards spoke of as one of the greatest blessings of 
his life. About this time his mind became deeply exercised 
on the subject of baptizing children whose parents did 
not profess saving faith in Christ. After careful examina- 



48 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

tion and prayer he became persuaded that such administra- 
tion of the ordinance was unmeaning and unauthorized, and 
at once determined to practice no longer what has been 
styled the lax plan. In coming to this conclusion he 
clearly foresaw that it would produce no little agitation in 
his congregation, and he even apprehended that it might 
lead to a dissolution of the pastoral relation, but having 
made up his mind he fearlessly announced his intentions. 
It was soon apparent however that he was sustained by 
a large majority of the congregation, although some few 
left the church on this account. Dr. Backus considers this 
worthy of notice because he says it has been ascertained 
that it did actually produce the first serious impression 
upon some of those who afterwards became subjects of the 
revival. 

"From this time, too," he continues, "one who has 
carefully examined Dr. Nevins's manuscripts testifies that 
there may be discovered a decided increase of solemnity, 
directness, pungency and unction in his sermons. And no 
one who peruses the touching entries in his diary can fail to 
observe striking evidences of this change." 

Dr. Backus relates the story of the great revival which 
constituted the most important event of Dr. Nevins's min- 
istry, as follows: 

"Such was the state of things on Sunday, March 7, 1827. 
There was no expectation beyond what is implied in an 
ardent longing for the blessing. There had been no attempt 
to get up a revival, but a simple waiting upon God — upon 
Him only. That morning Mr. Nevins preached from the 
text, 'Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation/ 
The sermon, which is still preserved, is plain, practical 



REYNOLDS 



49 



and pungent: but not at all remarkable. It is not, indeed, 
equal in power and directness to many of his other dis- 
courses. He was not himself conscious of anything special 
in its delivery. He did not even discover anything unusual 
in the appearance of the congregation. But it was accom- 
panied with the demonstration of the Spirit and with 
power. In the interval between the morning and after- 
noon services, the older and more experienced teachers in 
the Sabbath School were surprised to find a number of the 
younger teachers and of the more advanced scholars, who 
were not professors of religion, in the deepest anxiety 
respecting their salvation, so much so that it entirely 
interrupted the regular proceedings of the school. At the 
same time several members of the congregation visited Mr. 
Nevins at his home, in a similar state of feeling. The next 
day and throughout the week, wherever he went, he found 
the deepest tenderness and anxiety. Whole families were 
impressed by they knew not what. He at once invited all 
such to meet him at his residence on Monday evening. 
And in the course of a few weeks the spirit of inquiry had 
so spread that as many as seventy or eighty were found 
in attendance upon these meetings for council and instruc- 
tion, some in overwhelming distress. 

"As the immediate result of this gracious outpouring, more 
than two hundred persons united with the two churches. 
Quite a number became most useful — some of them dis- 
tinguished ministers of the Gospel. A large portion of the 
young men have subsequently become officers in the various 
churches now existing. And others have ever been among 
the most active, zealous and useful of our church members. 
Nor was the influence of this revival limited to these more 



50 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

palpable and recorded manifestations. It infused fresh 
life into the churches, animated and encouraged the 
ministers and gave a new impulse to the cause such as it 
never before received. Sunday Schools, Prayer Meetings 
and Tract Visitations were established in various parts of 
the city. The Fourth Presbyterian Church was the result 
of one of these enterprises. Another was established at 
Crook's factory to which Mr. Musgrave received a call 
that resulted in the useful settlement in the Third Church. 
And altogether an amount of good was accomplished that 
will never fully be estimated this side of eternity. Dr. 
Nevins testified on his dying bed, six years afterwards, 
that he had seen no reason to be ashamed of any who had 
come into the church at that time. From that period, as 
his diary shows, his constant anxiety was to labor — agonize 
as he says, — for a renewal of the work. It manifestly 
produced in him a deeper sense of dependence upon the 
Holy Spirit, confidence in the Divine power and grace, 
and desire to be taught and guided in his ministry from 
above. When preaching his tenth anniversary sermon he 
mentioned that two hundred and sixty had joined the 
church during his ministry chiefly, as he thought, through 
this revival. In 183 1, the First Church enjoyed a similar 
season though neither so marked nor extensive." 

It was not long after this that Dr. Nevins's health began 
to decline. In 1832 he had an attack of bilious fever 
which laid him aside for more than two months, and in 
1834 he was again arrested by disease. Incessant labor 
produced symptoms of bronchitis, he lost his voice and 
was disabled during the whole summer. Relaxation and 
travel however had apparently recruited his wasted strength 



REYNOLDS 5 1 

when the sudden death of his beloved wife from cholera in 
November, together with that of his child, again prostrated 
him in sickness and prepared him for a premature grave. 
He preached his last sermon on New Year's Day 1835 and 
soon after sailed for the West Indies where he passed the 
winter and spring, but without the benefit anticipated by 
his friends; he returned only to struggle patiently through 
the summer, and on September 14, 1835, breathed his last. 
During the year 1834 and in January and February 1835 
while he was prevented from preaching by sickness, he 
employed his time writing the articles for the New York 
Observer over the finals of his name, M. S., which were also 
printed in book form after his death by the American Tract 
Society, under the title of "Nevins' Practical Thoughts. " 
and " Thoughts on Popery," being volume xiii of the Evan- 
gelical Family Library. 

In the year 1834 the session then consisting of Colonel 
Mosher and Mr. Morris was increased by the election of 
Messrs. David Courtenay, John N. Brown and William 
L. Gill. The Democratic National Convention which 
nominated Mr. Van Buren for President in 1835 met in 
Baltimore on May 20 and by permission of the Committee — 
Dr. Nevins then being in the West Indies — held its sessions 
in the First Presbyterian Church. In consequence thereof 
the session at the meeting held next day passed a resolution 
disapproving the use of the church building for other than 
religious purposes and proposing to the Committee that 
neither body should in future authorize the use of the 
church building or lecture- room for any secular purpose 
without the concurrence of the other. The Committee 
apparently regarded this resolution as a reflection upon its 



52 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

course in allowing a political assemblage to be held in a 
church, for the only response it made to the communication 
thus addressed to it by the session was to return it without 
comment and note the circumstances upon its minutes. 
It is believed however that the church building was never 
again used for any secular purpose until after it had been 
sold and delivered over to the United States Government 
in i860, when it was used by the Constitutional Union 
party to hold the convention which nominated Messrs. 
John Bell and Edward Everett as candidates for President 
and Vice-President of the United States. It was thus 
probably the only church building in the country in which 
two presidential nominating conventions were ever held. 



CHAPTER IV 

DR. BACKUS'S PASTORATE, 1836-1875 

On April n, 1836, Rev. John C. Backus was elected and 
on September 15 of the same year installed as the fourth 
pastor of the church. He was then a young man of twenty- 
six. Born September 3, 18 10, in the village of Weathersfield, 
Connecticut, he was graduated with distinction at Yale Col- 
lege in 183 1, afterwards entered the Theological Seminary 
at Princeton, and was licensed to preach by the Presbytery 
of New Brunswick. In December 1835 he passed through 
Baltimore on his way to New Orleans in the service of the 
Board of Domestic Missions and preached in the church, 
as he tells us, without the slightest expectation of ever 
seeing the place again, but the impression he then made 
upon the congregation was so favorable as to result in 
his establishment among them for life. He entered upon 
his office overwhelmed with the sense of its responsiblilites 
and full of misgivings as to his own qualifications for the 
position, but Providence had in store for him a greater work 
than that of any of his predecessors and a wider field of 
labor than that to which their ministrations had been 
confined. His own pastorate he afterwards modestly des- 
cribed as "a period more particularly characterized by 
the developement of those activities of the congregation 
in the departments of church extension and general Chris- 
tian benevolence for which the previous periods had so 
remarkably prepared the way." Saidhis successor, Dr. Left- 

53 



54 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OE BALTIMORE 

wich, forty-eight years afterwards, when conducting the fu- 
neral services at his burial which by a singular coincidence 
took place upon the anniversary of his election as pastor, 
"In consequence of the material prosperity which had 
flowed upon the country the church had grown much in 
wealth. In consequence of the recent out-pouring of the 
Spirit with which the church had been blessed it had grown 
even more in grace. And now with their hands laden with 
God's bounty and their hearts warmed with God's love, 
the mission, the evident mission of this people was to extend 
at home and abroad the Kingdom of the Redeemer. The 
situation called and called loudly for a man with a brain 
wise enough to discern and a hand cunning enough to 
execute liberal things. The pastor-elect responded to this 
call as face to face in water.' ' 

As illustrative of the extreme diffidence with which Mr. 
Backus assumed the charge of the First Church the fol- 
lowing extract is given from a letter dated Philadelphia, 
June 10, 1836, written by him to the committee who had 
presented the call on behalf of the congregation. After stat- 
ing that their first communication had been placed in his 
hands as he was passing through Louisville when he had 
barely time to acknowledge it, and that he had hardly been 
stationary for a single moment since he says, "I cannot 
tell you of the embarrassment which my entertaining for a 
moment a call to so responsible a post has occasioned me. 
Whichever way I decide it objections and difficulties will 
have to be encountered. Previous however to coming to 
a decision I desire to consult you with reference to the views 
of the congregation on some points which will be involved in 
it. When I received your communication informing me that 



REYNOLDS 55 

the First Church in Baltimore had elected me their Pastor 
I was engaged as you were all aware in the Service of the 
Board of Missions. My connection with that Institution 
I find cannot honorably be dissolved till certain objects 
proposed in my agency are completed and an opportunity 
afforded for obtaining some one suitable to fill the post I 
am occupying. Moreover this desultory life which my 
duties have required me to lead since ever I left the 
Seminary, has unfitted me for entering immediately upon 
the duties of a pastoral charge anywhere much less such a one 
as that of the First Church in Baltimore. My friends too 
would not consider it prudent, were there no other obsta- 
cles, in me to enter upon so responsible and arduous duties 
in your city in mid-summer. I desire to inquire there- 
fore whether the congregation feel that their interests would 
suffer to any extent by remaining without a pastor till 
such a time in the fall as families are generally accustomed 
to return to their city residences, and whether they would 
be satisfied with my acceptance of their call at that time, 
provided no other obstacle were in the way. I feel desirous 
too of knowing whether the congregation are so far aware 
of my circumstances as to expect me, as I shall be under 
the necessity of doing if I accept the call, to devote my 
time almost exclusively for a year or two to study — reserving 
very little for pastoral visitation — and moreover to seek 
much assistance from other ministers. 

"In considering the subject I have felt it to be very 
important to have my mind perfectly at ease on these 
points. Had I sought so important a post, it might perhaps 
seem unreasonable in me to propose such inquiries. But 
the unanimity and kind interest with which the call after 



56 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

a slight acquaintance has been urged upon me, together 
with the confidence which I feel that it would be the height 
of presumption in me to enter that charge without some 
such express understanding, have induced me to trouble 
you with this communication." 

Twenty- three years later Dr. Backus thus describes the 
committee which he found in office when he came to Balti- 
more: "When the present pastor entered upon the duties 
of this charge he found here General Samuel Smith, Messrs. 
Roland Smith, Robert Gilmor, James Buchanan, Alexander 
Fridge, Alexander McDonald, Judges Nesbit and Purviance, 
Messrs. George Brown, James Swan, James Cox, James 
Armstrong, James Campbell and Robert Purviance who 
were or had been members of 'the committee' — all now among 
the dead. Barely to mention their names is a sufficient 
indication of the character and position of the church in 
the community, as they were distinguished in the highest 
walks of civil, political, commercial and social life, with a 
reputation in these various departments that gave lustre 
not only to the congregation, but to the city and country. 
They were the connecting links between the earliest and the 
latest periods of the congregation, its feeble infancy and its 
matured manhood. 

"Most if not all of them had listened to every pastor the 
church had had during the first century of its existence. 
They had borne with the fathers the heat and burden of its 
struggling into existence. They had ministered by their 
wealth and social position to its highest outward pros- 
perity. They had witnessed its doubtful beginnings, its 
fullest strength and its widest influence. It would afford 
me the greatest satisfaction to be able to dwell more mi- 



REYNOLDS 57 

nutely upon their valuable services. As however, this is 
impracticable in the present occasion, I may be permitted 
to single out two or three as specimens, not indeed to claim 
for them any preeminence in such a galaxy, but because of 
their peculiar relation to the history of the church. 

" General Samuel Smith was then the oldest living t com- 
mittee man' or trustee of the congregation, having been 
elected in 1782, before the erection of the building we are 
just leaving. He was a true representative of the old 
school of soldiers, politicians and merchants. Having dur- 
ing the revolution fought bravely the battles of his coun- 
try, and, during the most remarkable period of the rise 
and progress of our city, attained the first rank among her 
merchant princes, and there filled the highest political po- 
sitions in the city, state and general government. 2 He 
brought to the committee an intelligence, energy, resolution 
and executive ability which, while they rendered him the 
man for emergencies, gave him the most commanding 
influence and control. 

"Mr. Alexander Fridge was elected in 18 16 in the place of 
Mr. William Smith who had held the office since the organi- 
zation of the congregation in 1761 — a period of more than 
fifty years — connecting the present ministry directly by a 
single link with the founders of the church. Mr. Fridge 
came here in time to be identified with the most rapid 
growth of the city, and the congregation. Liberally edu- 

2 General Smith attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Revolu- 
tionary army and distinguished himself by his defence of Fort Mifflin. He 
commanded the forces which defended Baltimore at the bombardment of 
Fort McHenry in 181 5 and was twice sent to the Unites States Senate from 
Maryland in 1803 and again in 1822, serving for two successive terms on 
each occasion. 



58 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

cated in a university of the Old World (in the class with Sir 
James Macintosh and Robert Hall) with sound judgment 
and unsullied integrity he became the most successful mer- 
chant. I found him just recently retired from active busi- 
beat. a kinder, more unselfish philanthropic heart never 
ness, The unfortunate poor, the forlorn stranger, the me- 
chanic out of employment, the young man starting in life 
without patrons or friends, always found in him an active, 
liberal, kind friend, counsellor and helper. It was however, 
in relation to the benevolent operations of the church that 
his influence at that particular time was most important. 
He always manifested the warmest and most efficient 
interest in every secular and religious charity and never 
held back from any good work. His character, position 
and influence rendered one having such views and feelings 
a most important instrument in forming and establishing 
that benevolent character, for which the congregation has 
been somewhat distinguished. 

"One other name must be mentioned and it is with a 
tenderness of regret, in which all who hear me will sympa- 
thize, as under a recent affliction. To Mr. George Brown 
this congregation owes, under God, more perhaps than to 
any other person for its present position in this community. 
With his name its reputation, influence and usefulness 
are most intimately identified. Elected a member of 'the 
committee' in 1825, he served the congregation in this 
capacity with an assiduity and faithfulness second to no 
other for nearly thirty-five years. During this last period 
of the history of the church now under review he withdrew 
gradually from the pressure of active business, and gave 
himself increasingly to the promotion of those various 



REYNOLDS 59 

benevolent enterprises demanded by our own age, till he 
came to be almost universally looked to in all such under- 
takings. He not only contributed liberally of his wealth, 
but also by his counsels and active services. The contri- 
butions of this church to our Board of Missions, Education, 
etc., as well as to the other benevolent objects of the day, 
were largely made up of his gifts. And in the work of 
extending the church in this city and vicinity, as well as in 
more remote parts of the country, to no other person have 
we been more indebted. The new church edifice especially 
will be always identified with his name. Only those however 
who were associated with him in carrying it on, will ever 
know how much it owes under God to his wisdom and pru- 
dence, his untiring vigilance, his important encouragement 
and timely assistance. Present circumstances prevent me 
from saying more, less could not be said in faithfulness to 
this review." 

The year following that in which Dr. Backus entered 
upon his pastorate, the Presbyterian Church, after a pro- 
tracted controversy between what were styled the Old and 
New Schools, was divided into two bodies. Soon after 
the attention of the churches was diverted from the strife 
which had agitated them for two years and terminated in 
this disruption, they began to engage in more agreeable 
work and a spirit of church extension was waked up 
throughout the entire presbytery of Baltimore. Com- 
mittees were appointed to visit various portions of the 
Presbyterian bounds for the purpose of strengthening feeble 
churches, organizing congregations in desolate places and 
seeking in other ways the promotion of religion. In this 
work the congregation of the First Church took an active 
part. 



6o FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OE BALTIMORE 

In pursuance of a resolution passed on June 7 of the 
same year (1837) by the General Assembly, then sitting at 
Philadelphia, that body appointed forty ministers and 
forty laymen as a Board of Foreign Missions to superintend 
and conduct for it the work of Foreign Missions of the Pres- 
byterian Church. The resolution provided that one fourth 
part of the Board should go out annually in alphabetical 
order, and thereafter ten ministers and ten laymen should 
be annually elected to fill the vacancies thus created and 
their term of office should be four years. It directed said 
Board to hold its first meeting in the city of Baltimore 
where it accordingly convened on the 31st day of October 
1837 at three o'clock in the afternoon in the lecture room of 
the First Presbyterian Church, Rev. John C. Backus, the 
minister of the church, Mr. George Morrison, an elder, and 
Mr. George Brown, a member of the Committee, being all 
members of the Board. The Board then organized by 
appointing Rev. Ashbel Green, D.D., Chairman and Rev. 
Nicholas Murray and Rev. John M. Krebs secretaries, and 
elected the following permanent officers: Rev. Samuel 
Miller, D.D., of Princeton, New Jersey, President; Gen. 
William McDonald of Baltimore, Maryland, Vice-President; 
Walter Lowrie, Esq., Secretary, and Mr. James Pa ton, 
Treasurer. 

The number of missionaries under the care of the newly 
created Board during the first year of its existence was 
thirty-eight, which in 191 2 had increased to 1084; and the 
amount of its receipts during the latter year were $1,950,000, 
exclusive of the appropriation of $794,498.27 from the 
Kennedy Fund, as against $44,548.62 the total receipts for 
the year 1837. 



REYNOLDS 6 1 

In the autumn of 1840 Messrs. John Rodgers, David 
Stewart and John Falconer were elected elders, and Henry 
C. Turnbull, John Haskell, Moses Hyde and Lancaster 
Ould, deacons, and early in the next year they were ordained. 
This is the first election of deacons of which any account 
appears upon the church records. In the sessional confer- 
ences in which the deacons took part 3 a new impulse was 
given to the activities of the church. The subject of colon- 
izing formed a prominent topic of the discussions and it 
was soon determined to make an effort to build a new 
church somewhere near the cathedral. 

Before any plans were matured it was understood that 
the Second Church also contemplated colonizing and from 
apprehension that the attempt to carry on two such enter- 
prises at the same time might endanger the success of both, 
the two churches agreed to unite on one colonization at a 
time. As the enterprise proposed by the Second Church 
in East Baltimore was the smaller and therefore more 
easily managed it was decided to commence with that — 
especially as the population in that part of the city was 
large and increasing and there was but one Presbyterian 
Church east of the Falls. Accordingly in November 1842 
at the meeting of the pastors, elders and deacons of the 
First and Second Presbyterian Churches, held at the First 
Church parsonage on North Street the measure was deter- 
mined upon, a subscription was opened and all the requisite 
preliminary steps were taken for building the Aisquith 
Street Presbyterian Church, which was completed in 1844. 

3 This custom which was kept up in the First Church until the beginning 
of Dr. Witherspoon's ministry in 1894 after which the deacons ceased to 
attend the meetings of session. 



62 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

Although the colony was principally from the Second 
Church it included one elder, one deacon, and some twenty 
or thirty members of the First Church. Subsequently the 
congregation of the First Church united in a successful 
effort to purchase a desirable parsonage for the Aisquith 
Street Church and also aided in building a new lecture 
room for the congregation in the rear of that church. 

Before the Aisquith Street Church was completed some 
members of the First Church began to consider the erection 
of what afterwards became the Franklin Street Church. 
After having collected some twelve thousand dollars for 
the purpose, the lot on which it now stands was bought from 
Mr. Robert Gilmor; the building was commenced and after 
two years, was brought to completion in 1846. Although 
the cost was somewhat greater than had been expected, 
the location was found to be most eligible and when the 
church was opened for divine service a large sale of pews 
was made and a numerous and influential congregation 
gathered. A colony consisting of two elders, two deacons, 
seventy church members and the families connected with 
them went out from the First Church to form this congre- 
gation. "Seldom," says Dr. Backus, "has a more prom- 
ising colony gone forth. It was composed not of the aged, 
the weak, the lame, the halt, but, as all genuine sacrifices 
should be, of the firstlings of the flock, of the very flower 
of the congregation. They went not because of any dis- 
satisfaction with the old church (some of the most efficient 
members of the building committee as my very venerable 
friend, Joseph Taylor, and others expected to remain 
behind) but gave their trust, money and labor to the enter- 
prise, with a simple desire to extend Presbyterianism in 
our city." 



REYNOLDS 63 

While the enterprise was going on the First Church was 
also called upon to assist the Second Church, from which 
some of the Franklin Street congregation had come, in the 
work of building Broadway Church, but the latter, being 
a smaller undertaking was completed first. 

After the colony had gone out to form the Franklin Street 
Church the congregation decided to remodel their own 
church edifice by removing the pulpit, which was then at 
the end of the church next to Fayette Street, to the opposite 
end of the edifice, turning around the pews, substituting 
a wooden floor for the brick one and heating the building 
by means of a furnace in the cellar instead of the four wood 
stoves which originally stood on the main floor. At the 
same time a new organ was put in and the sexton's large 
green arm chair which used to stand directly in front of the 
pulpit was taken away. 

From 1829 to the latter part of 1844, shortly before its 
removal, this chair had been occupied by Mr. John Spence, 
who during that period had held the office of sexton, which in 
his day included all the functions of the Scottish beadles 
of the old times, a race of whom he may be said to have 
been one of the last survivors although without its title 
and uniform. As the maintenance of order and decorum 
during divine service was then deemed one of his most 
important duties, he always carried about him with as part 
of the insignia of his office, in addition to the church keys, 
a rattan designed to strike terror into small boys who might 
be inclined to become obstreperous. Dr. Backus says of 
him, "When I first came, a young man, the sexton in that 
arm-chair in front of the pulpit, with his hymn-book and 
rattan inspired me with an awful reverence. I am not sure 



64 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

that I did not sometimes look around, when I made any slip, 
to see if he was not after me." The late Richard D. Fisher, 
for many years a member of the committee, shortly before 
his death told the writer that he had not only remembered 
old Mr. Spence sitting in his green arm-chair in front of the 
pulpit with his hymn-book, church keys and rattan upon a 
stool before him, but distinctly recalled one occasion on which 
he applied the latter to a small boy whom he seized by the 
nape of the neck and summarily ejected from the church 
for misconduct during the sermon. It may here be men- 
tioned that John Spence was succeded in this office in 
October 1844 by his son, George W. Spence, and he in turn 
in June 1873 by his son, John Backus Spence, who has filled 
the position ever since to the present day, a rare instance 
of the same position being filled in succession by father, 
son and grandson, for over eighty years. 

The large colonies which thus went forth from the First 
Church did not affect its prosperity, for although in a part 
of the city that was rapidly being occupied by places of 
business in the stead of dwellings, it had in three years not 
only paid for its improvements, which cost some ten thousand 
dollars, and discharged a long standing debt of five thousand 
dollars besides, but its income according to the treasurer's 
statement was larger than it had ever been before. 

In the year 1848 Messrs. W. W. Spence and William 
B. Canfield were elected ruling elders, the number of the 
session having been greatly reduced by deaths of Messrs. 
George Morris and Dr. Maxwell McDowell and the with- 
drawal of Mr. John Falconer and Dr. David Steuart, who 
went out with the Franklin Street colony. It may be inter- 
esting to remark here that in the volume of Maryland 



REYNOLDS 65 

Broadsides in the Library of Congress there is a four page 
publication by Dr. Maxwell McDowell dated April 19, 
1844, concerning the office of ruling elders in the Presby- 
terian Church, maintaining that they, as well as the clergy, 
ought to lay on hands at the ordination of a minister by 
the Presbytery. 

The year 1848 also marked the adoption by the session 
of that plan of systematic benevolence which has proved 
so efficacious in developing the Christian activities of the 
congregation. Its introduction to the First Church arose 
from the circumstance that in 1846 when Dr. Backus was 
on a visit to Scotland, Dr. Chalmers handed him a copy 
of his " Christian Economics/' a pamphlet in which he 
developed the plan of supporting and extending the gospel, 
which had proved so successful in the Free Church of Scot- 
land, rendering it one of the most liberal and efficient 
churches in Christendom; and he warmly urged the adop- 
tion of something of the same kind by the churches in Amer- 
ica. Shortly after Dr. Backus's return the decrease in the 
number of his congregation caused by the large colony 
which went out to the Franklin Street Church threatened 
a very serious diminution of the collections so that the 
necessity for awakening additional interest in this subject 
was deeply felt. The "Free Church plan" was submitted 
to the session and after some deliberation adopted by them, 
though not without misgivings lest the want of familiarity 
with such a mode of contributing and the difficulty of col- 
lecting the contributions from so large a number might 
prevent its success. Soon after its adoption it was formally 
explained in a discourse delivered in September 1848. The 
success with which it worked may be best seen from the 



66 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

fact that during the first year the contributions of the 
church increased from three thousand dollars, the previous 
average, to more than four thousand; the second year to five 
thousand four hundred; the third year to over six thousand; 
and so they gradually increased until in 1859 they amounted 
to more than ten thousand dollars a year, notwithstanding 
that during this period there had been lost by death and 
removals contributors who had given twelve hundred 
dollars annually. Moreover in addition to these stated 
contributions the congregation gave an average of four 
thousand dollars annually to special religious objects, 
making its religious benefactions during the first eleven 
years after the adoption of the plan double the amount of 
those of the previous twelve years. This was of course 
exclusive of the ordinary church expenses amounting 
during these eleven years to about forty thousand dollars, 
besides some eighty thousand dollars more, which during 
the latter part of this period were contributed towards 
the building of the present church edifice. 

The next measure was the purchase, made with the co- 
operation of some of the other Presbyterian churches, from 
the Baptist denomination in 1850 of the neat and sub- 
stantial church on Madison Street between Park and 
Cathedral Streets for the colored congregation, who still 
occupy it. 

In the same year the need of a church in the western 
part of the city was beginning to be deeply felt and it was 
suggested that one might be built upon the grave yard of 
the First Church at the corner of Greene and Fayette Streets 
without interfering with the sacred purpose to which this 
ground had been consecrated, and so as to prevent it from 



REYNOLDS 67 

ever being diverted to other uses. Accordingly Dr. Backus, 
Messrs. Joseph Taylor, Alexander Murdoch, Archibald 
Stirling, Daniel Holt, William W. Spence and William B. 
Canfield of the First Church with Messrs M. B. Clarke 
and John Falconer, Dr. E. H. Perkins, Mr. John Bigham 
of the Franklin Street Church and Mr. A. Fenton, asso- 
ciated themselves together for this purpose. The ground 
was broken in July 185 1 and the building completed in 
one year, and the Westminster Church, as it was then 
named, was opened for divine services on July 4, 1852. 

Shortly after this the Twelfth Church on Franklin Street 
was built by the First, Franklin Street and Westminister 
Churches, and about the same time some ladies of the 
First Church became engaged in mission work on Federal 
Hill and secured from the seminary, through the Ladies' 
Missionary Sewing Society, the services of Rev. Mr. Kauf- 
man who soon gathered there one of the largest Sabbath 
Schools in the city which became the nucleus of a congre- 
gation. The interest felt by the congregation of the First 
Church in a mission under the care of its ladies rendered it 
comparatively an easy matter to raise funds for the erection of 
the Light Street Church which was begun in 1854. 

As early as 1852, at a social gathering at Mr. Archibald 
Stirling's, the necessity of an eventual removal of the 
First Church was discussed, as the part of the city in which 
it stood was then rapidly being filled up with places of 
business. Subsequently a number of members of the 
congregation, after further discussion at several meetings 
at the parsonage, determined to purchase the lot at the 
corner of Madison Street and Park Avenue on which the 
present church building stands. 



68 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

In October 1853 the congregation was convened to 
consider the question of removal, and after full discussion 
resolved to accept the offer of the lot from those who had 
purchased it and go forward with the erection as soon as 
the old church could be disposed of or other arrangements 
made. Subsequently plans designed by Mr. N. G. Stark- 
wether were submitted by Hon. J. Morrison Harris, Chair- 
man of the Committee, and the ground was broken in July 
1854. In 1859 the old church was sold to the United 
States Government as a site for a Court House and on the 
last Sabbath in September of that year the congregation 
assembled to worship for the last time in that venerable 
building. The occasion was a most interesting one and 
many who had attended there and some whose ancestors 
had worshipped there met with the regular congregation 
and filled the house to overflowing. 

At the morning service Dr. Backus delivered the inter- 
esting discourse giving the history of the congregation from 
its beginning, from which this sketch is largely taken. At 
the afternoon service the Lord's Supper was administered 
by the pastor assisted by Rev. Joseph T. Smith, D.D., of 
the Second Church, Rev. Cyrus Dickson, D.D., of the 
Westminster Church, Rev. George D. Purviance, recently 
pastor of the Fourth Church, himself born and brought 
up in the First Church and whose ancestors were among 
its leading founders and many of whom had during succes- 
sive generations been among its most valuable officers, 
and Rev. Stephen Williams, the oldest Presbyterian preacher 
in Baltimore. Many former members of the congregation 
who had removed to help establish other churches but 
desired to commemorate once more amid the solemn and 



REYNOLDS 69 

tender associations of the past, the dying love of their 
Redeemer in their old house of prayer, met together again 
on this occasion. There were also present, with the exception 
of Mr. Henry C. Turnbull, who was prevented by illness, 
all the surviving elders and deacons, who had served in 
the church, Messrs. John N. Brown and John Falconer, 
elders in the Westminster Church, Messrs. David Courtenay 
and Lancaster Ould, elders in the Franklin Street Church, 
Mr. Moses Hyde, elder in the Aisquith Street Church, Dr. 
David Steuart, elder in the Annapolis Presbyterian Church 
and Mr. John H. Haskell, recently an elder in the Franklin 
Street Church, but now again a member of the First Church. 
These assisted in the distribution of the elements. The 
service was opened with singing and prayer by Mr. Pur- 
viance. Then followed the reading of the words of the 
institution and an address by Dr. Backus. The bread was 
dispensed by Dr. Dickson and the cup by Dr. Smith. The 
services throughout, at this family reunion of the oldest 
Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, were most tender and 
solemn, and none of those present were likely to forget them, 
but for the benefit of their descendants it has been thought 
desirable to preserve this brief memorial. 

The following hymn was written by Miss Aurelia Winder 
(afterwards Mrs. Townsend) a member of the church, 
especially for this service. 

HYMN 

For the last service in the First Presbyterian Church, Baltimore 

Once more we meet within this sacred place, 
And where our fathers prayed, our hearts we bow; 

'Tis the last time we here may seek Thy face: 
God of our fathers, hear their children now. 



70 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

Remember, Lord, here, in our infant years, 
Our pious parents brought us to thy Jhrone, 

And offered us, with many prayers and tears: 
God of our fathers, now their children own. 

Remember, in our riper years, we met 
Here, round Thy table, to renew the vow: 

And though our faithless hearts do oft forget, 
God of our fathers, seal the covenant now. 

Remember, here we brought our grief and care, 
Here cast our burthens on thy boundless love, 

Here quenched the tempter's fiery darts in prayer: 
God of our fathers, still our helper prove. 

No more within these ancient walls we meet, 
Beneath this roof no more Thy grace implore, 

Nor here again our hymns of praise repeat: 
God of our fathers, bless us here once more. 4 

On the next sabbath, October 2, 1859, the present building 
which was then completed, excepting the spires, was dedi- 
cated formally to the worship of Almighty God with appro- 
priate services. 

On January 9, 1861, Dr. Elisha H. Perkins and Messrs. 
John H. Haskell, Alexander M. Carter and Archibald 
Stirling, Jr. were elected elders and Messrs. Daniel Warfield, 
Jr., Alexander I. Riach, J. Franklin Dix and George H. 
Rodgers deacons. 

In May of the same year, Dr. Backus was honored by 
being chosen Moderator of the General Assembly of the 
Presbyterian Church (Old School Branch) which was held 
that year at Philadelphia. This it will be remembered 
was just after the commencement of the Civil War when 

4 "Fugitive Verses, ,, by Aurelia Winder Townsend. Published 1876, 
p. 46. 



REYNOLDS 7 1 

party spirit ran very high and entered to a great extent 
into every relation of life. The members of the Presby- 
terian Church, especially in the border states, were greatly 
divided in their sympathies between the Federal Govern- 
ment and the South, and nowhere more so than in the First 
Church in Baltimore. Dr. Backus while having decided 
convictions as to patriotic duty which he did not hesitate 
to express frankly on all proper occasions, was also strongly 
of the opinion that only the things of Caesar should be 
rendered unto him and all the things of God should be 
rendered unto him alone, and therefore there could be no 
justification for allowing political differences to become the 
subject of discord, and division in religious matters; and 
he had displayed such wisdom, tact, firmness and sancti- 
fied common sense in preventing party spirit from enter- 
ing as a disturbing element into the conduct of religious 
worship in his own congregation as to mark him for a 
shining illustration of that course which the best and wisest 
leaders of the Presbyterian Church deemed it proper for 
that body to pursue in those troublous times. This fact 
doubtless contributed largely to the unanimity with which 
he was selected to moderate the Assembly at such a critical 
period. 

In 1862 the Franklin Square Church (originally the 
Fourth Church and now connected with the Southern 
Assembly) was completed by the First Church. 

In 1863 a mission Sabbath School and weekly prayer 
meeting was commenced in the Northwestern section of 
the city which led in 1869 to the building of a mission church 
on the corner of Dolphin and Etting Streets. After re- 
maining for some time a mission of the First Church it was 



72 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

finally organized by the presbytery as the Dolphin Street 
Church and in 1875 was united with the Greene Street 
Church to form Lafayette Square Presbyterian Church. 
This last measure also was one in which Dr. Backus took 
a deep interest and it was indeed mainly through his exertions 
that the arrangement was successfully carried through, a 
a large part of the necessary funds having been contributed 
by members of the First Church. 

In 1864 the Committee of the church offered to increase 
the pastor's salary, but not feeling the need of such increase 
himself at that time so much as the importance of more 
efficient mission work on the part of the church, he asked 
that instead of increasing his salary the committee would 
give him an assistant who would supplement the pastoral 
work in the mission Sabbath School and Bible Class depart- 
ments. To this the committee cheerfully assented and 
authorized him to engage the services of such an assistant. 
The Rev. Jacob Weidman was selected and served with 
great profit for several years. When in 1866 Dr. Backus' 
eyesight became impaired the session and committee re- 
quested him to take a respite from work for six months. 
From this time the assistant took part in supplying the 
pulpit. In 1867 Mr Weidman resigned and Rev. John 
Sparhawk Jones of Philadelphia was chosen to take his 
place and filled the pulpit regularly at the evening service 
for the ensuing three years. During this time he earned a 
reputation as the most brilliant and popular preacher in 
the city, and the church was thronged every Sunday 
evening with strangers and members of other churches in 
addition to the regular congregation, so that chairs and 
benches had to be placed in the aisles. 



REYNOLDS 73 

Some years previous to this, Mrs. Isabella Brown, a 
member of the First Church desiring to erect some perma- 
nent memorial of her husband, the late George Brown, who 
died in 1859, determined after some consideration to put 
it in the form of a church. The distractions and uncertain- 
ties in a border city attendant upon the Civil War which 
was then going on caused some delay, but in 1870 the Brown 
Memorial Church, erected by her at the corner of Park 
Avenue and Townsend Street, was completed and dedi- 
cated and the Rev. John Sparhawk Jones became its 
first pastor and took with him a large colony from the First 
Church. He was succeeded by Rev. Timothy G. Darling 
of Nassau, New Providence, as assistant pastor and in 1873 
Mr. Darling having accepted a call to Schenectady, New 
York, he was succeeded as assistant pastor by Rev. George 
C. Yeisly of Baltimore. 

In accordance with a resolution of the session passed 
October 30, 1873, the congregation thenceforward adopted 
the custom of standing during the singing of hymns in 
public worship. In December 1874 Dr. Russell Murdoch 
and Messrs. John J. Thomsen, John V. L. Graham and 
Elisha H. Perkins, Jr. were elected deacons and ordained 
in February 1875. The same year the spires of the church 
were completed, making the entire cost of the building 
with its surroundings about $250,000. It is built of New 
Brunswick free stone and its dimensions are as follows: 
Length of house, 131 feet; width of house, 78 feet; height 
of main spire, 273 feet; height of corner spire, 125 feet; 
height of rear spire, 78 feet; height of ceiling, 58 feet. 

At the meeting of the session in May 1875, Dr. Backus 
stated that after deliberate and prayerful consideration 



74 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

he had come to the conclusion that in view of his advanced 
years it would be best for the interest of the church that 
he should ask the presbytery, at its next session in the 
autumn, when he would have completed the fortieth year 
of his pastorate, to dissolve the relation and he gave his 
reasons for this conclusion at some length. The session 
remonstrated kindly but firmly at the time, and subse- 
quently in his absence agreed upon a written statement 
which they addressed to him (although without altering 
his conviction of duty) and ordered that his reasons with 
their reply should be put upon record. On Sunday Morning, 
October 10, 1875. Dr. Backus announced his intention to 
the congregation to whom he had ministered so acceptably 
for so many years. The following Thursday a congre- 
gational meeting at which the people, after taking measures 
to satisfy themselves that Dr. Backus was unalterably fixed 
in his resolve, yielded to his wishes so far as to consent 
that he be relieved from all the duties and responsibilities 
of the pastoral office, but insisted that he retain his connec- 
tion with the church as pastor emeritus. And the presby- 
tery so ordered at its meeting held October 18. 

At the congregational meeting held November 1 1875, 
a committee of eleven members of the congregation was 
appointed to whom was entrusted the duty of selecting a 
pastor, the congregation pledging itself to elect whomso- 
ever this committee should unanimously recommend. The 
same month the assistant pastor Mr. Yeisly accepted a 
call to Hudson, New York. 

During the long period of over three years which inter- 
vened between the appointment of this committee and 
the time of its final report in December 1878, during which 



REYNOLDS 75 

the church remained without a pastor and its pulpit was 
filled by temporary supplies obtained from month to month 
and often from week to week, it nevertheless kept up its 
organization and its regular work and even took up new 
work in a truly remarkable manner. 

In January 1876 the session decided to begin a mission 
Sabbath School in a three story irregular building which 
had formerly been a blacksmith shop at the Southwest 
corner of Gay and Chase Streets. Its proximity to the 
burial ground on the opposite corner, formerly belonging to 
the Second Presbyterian Church (but by it recently con- 
veyed to the Presbyterian Association of Baltimore City 
for preservation and the erection of a church thereon,) 
was the principal reason for the selection of this point; for, 
as it was hoped that a church would be the outcome of the 
enterprise, it was thought desirable that it should in its 
inception be near its future location. The building was 
accordingly rented for one year and after the necessary 
alterations had been made the school was opened on Sunday 
afternoon February 6, 1876, with eighty-one scholars; there 
were present six officers and twelve teachers from the First 
Church. The first preaching service was held on April 18 
conducted by Rev. J. William Mcllvain with a congre- 
gation of fifty persons. This was followed by similar serv- 
ices at irregular intervals until November 24 when regular 
weekly preaching was undertaken and sustained by the 
Presbyterian ministers of the City. In the summer of 1877 
the school had so increased- that the building became incon- 
veniently crowded, and a plan was proposed for the erection 
of Faith Chapel on the old Glendy burial ground at a cost 
of $3,000. Believing this to be in furtherance of the 



76 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

condition of the deed conveying the ground to it which 
called for the establishment of a church thereon for its 
preservation, and the expenditure for that purpose of any 
funds received from the city as damages for the opening 
of Broadway through one corner of it, the Presbyterian 
Association assented to the plan and the building was begun 
at once and completed about the beginning of the New 
Year at a total expenditure including furniture of about 
$4,000, of which friends of the enterprise living in the 
neighborhood contributed $400. It was formally set apart 
for the worship of God on Sunday January 6, 1878, as Faith 
Chapel of the First Presbyterian Church, Rev. Dr. Backus 
preaching the dedication sermon. Its pulpit was supplied 
from week to week either from Princeton or by city minis- 
ters until the following June when the Rev. John P. Camp- 
bell of Caledonia, New York, who was just graduated at 
Princeton Theological Seminary, on the invitation of the 
session took permanent charge of the work. After Mr. 
Campbell's ordination by the presbytery of Rochester 
which took place October 29, 1878, the session of the First 
Presbyterian Church met at Faith Chapel and received 
into the membership of the church eighteen persons on 
profession of faith and six by letter from other churches, 
making, with eight received before, a total membership of 
thirty- two persons to whom the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper was administered by Mr. Campbell by direction 
of the session upon the following Sabbath in the Chapel. 
This course was adopted to facilitate the growth of a sepa- 
rate congregation and was afterwards repeated regularly 
every three months down to the time when the congre- 
gation there worshiping was organized into an independent 
body as Faith Church, with its own pastor and session. 



CHAPTER V 

DR. LEFTWICH'S PASTORATE, 1879-1893 

On December 2, 1878, the committee of eleven, which 
had been appointed three years and one month before to 
select a pastor to succeed Dr. Backus, made its final report 
to a congregational meeting duly called for that purpose, 
presenting the name of Rev. James Turner Leftwich, D.D., 
then pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, 
Georgia, and the choice of the committee having been 
approved and ratified by the congregation they were directed 
to prosecute a call to him at once. The call was accepted 
by Dr. Leftwich, who entered upon the actual duties of 
his new charge on January 18, 1879, and was formally 
installed on October 28, of the same year. The Com- 
mittee had approached Dr. Leftwich previously but he was 
at that time engaged in the prosecution of a judicial case 
which had been appealed to the General Assembly of the 
Southern Presbyterian Church, and, as he did not consider 
himself at liberty to sever his condition with that assembly 
until the case in question should have been finally disposed 
of, he had declined to consider the call at the time, but 
after the case had been determined, negotiations were re- 
sumed which resulted in this acceptance as already stated. 

During the winter of 1880 it was determined to build a 
Manse upon the lot in the rear of the church which had at 
that time of its erection been given by Mr. George Brown 
for that purpose and a sufficient amount having been sub- 

77 



78 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

scribed to warrant the undertaking the building was begun 
in March 1881 and completed in the following November 
at a total cost of $16,000. 

In 1 88 1 Dr. Russell Murdoch and Mr. Elisha H. Perkins, 
Jr., were elected ruling elders, and in 1883 Messrs. John 
V. L. Graham and Edmund Witmer were elected ruling 
elders, and Messrs. Samuel W. T. Hopper and William 
Reynolds deacons. 

In the spring of 1883 the Presbyterian Association of 
Baltimore began the erection of a new Stone Church upon 
the old Glendy Burial Ground in compliance with the con- 
dition of the deed already mentioned under which it had 
acquired title to the property, the design being that this 
building should be occupied by the congregation then 
worshipping in Faith Chapel of the First Presbyterian 
Church. The new building was finally completed at a 
cost of about $40,000 derived partly from subscriptions 
and partly from damages awarded by the city of Balti- 
more for the ground taken for it for the extension of Broad- 
way. It was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day 1884 and has 
since been occupied by the congregation for which it was 
designed. This congregation, which then embraced over 
two hundred families, still remained under the care of the 
session of the First Church and so continued until December 
1886 when it was organized as an independent Presbyterian 
Church with its own session and officers, and Rev. John 
P. Campbell was installed as its first pastor. 

In the year 1883 was formed the Musical Society of the 
First Presbyterian Church, being the outgrowth of the 
Musical Society of the First Presbyterian Sabbath School, 
an association organized some two years before to assist 



REYNOLDS 79 

in the Sabbath School services and supported by private 
subscriptions. By invitation of the session early in the 
year 1884 the society acted as the choir of the church on 
one Sunday evening of each month and its music proved 
so acceptable to the congregation that later in the spring 
the session invited it to serve as a permanent choir of the 
church. This invitation being accepted arrangements 
were made for the support of the society by the church 
and, subject to the supervision and approval of the Music 
Committee of the session, it was given general management 
and control of the church music. Its efforts from the 
time it took charge of the music in October 1884 received 
the commendation and approval of many members of the 
congregation and the arrangement continued for over four- 
teen years down to January 1900, when the society had 
become so reduced in numbers by removals and resigna- 
tions from time to time, as to neccessitate the session to 
resume the control and management of the church music 
directly through its own music committee. The society 
originally consisted exclusively of members of the congre- 
gation and formed a large volunteer choir with a paid 
instructor, who acted as leader, and an organist, both of 
whom were selected and employed by the society, although 
paid by the church. As in process of time one or another 
member of the society dropped off or ceased to attend, it 
was found necessary to supplement the voices of these who 
continued to attend regularly by employing additional 
singers outside the society, so that eventually the number 
of the salaried singers more than doubled that of the 
volunteers, and the relation of the choir master and the 
few surviving members of the association became so compli- 



80 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

cated, that the only feasible solution of the difficulty seemed 
to be to invest the choir maste ■* wi h absolute control of 
the management and selection of the choir subject to the 
approval of the committee of the session, which could thus 
hold him fully responsible to it for all results. 

On April 5, 1884, Rev. John C. Backus, D.D., LL.D., 
Pastor Emeritus of this church, entered into rest, full of 
years and of honors, universally lamented by the congre- 
gation he had served so well for nearly half a century. 
Like his three predecessors in the pastorate of the First 
Presbyterian Church he remained its pastor until his death, 
for when in 1875 his people reluctantly yielded to his wish 
to be released from the duties and responsibilities of the 
office they insisted that he retain his connection with them 
as Pastor Emeritus. He was no ordinary man in any sense 
and if his intellectual powers have not been as fully recog- 
nized and appreciated as they deserved by the public at 
large, it has been because attention has been drawn away 
from them by the unusual brilliancy of his moral excellence. 
It has been often suggested that if Dr. Backus had been 
connected with the Episcopal Church, he undoubtedly 
would have been early made a bishop, and it may well be 
added that if he had been in the Roman Catholic Commun- 
ion, it could nowhere have found any one better fitted for a 
cardinal's hat, for he was indeed a "prince of the church." 
He had great executive ability, wonderful tact and a pro- 
found knowledge of men and of how to influence them. 
One who for many years served with him on the committee 
of the church says, he never knew him attempt to carry any 
measure through a body of men without eventually meeting 
with success in bringing them to his view. 



REYNOLDS 8l 

His method was well described by his lifelong friend and 
associate in the ministry, Dr. Joseph T. Smith: "He was 
not a man of popular meetings and platform speeches and 
public noisy display. His work was done quietly and 
unostentatiously. Deliberately and prayerfully he made 
up his mind that a certain enterprise ought to be under- 
taken for the Master's sake. Then he went from house to 
house, from man to man stating and explaining the subject 
rather as one seeking light and asking for counsel. He 
listened patiently to objections, tried to win the unresolved 
and stimulate the halting and halfhearted, sometimes 
waiting for a more favorable conjunction but only to labor 
on and bide the time till all should be accomplished. " It 
is doubtful if at the time of his death there was any man 
in the Presbyterian Church whose personality alone exer- 
cised a stronger influence than did his; there certainly 
was not at that time in the city of Baltimore another clergy- 
man of any denomination so universally known and revered 
and beloved. An old and prominent citizen, himself a 
devoted member of the Episcopal Church, used to say, 
that if he ever were in a position of great delicacy in which 
he was uncertain what course his duty as a Christian or 
as a gentleman would require him to pursue, there was no 
man living in whose counsel and advice he would feel such 
implicit confidence as in that of Dr. John C. Backus. 

As a characteristic illustration of his unobtrusive self- 
abnegation it may not be out of place to mention here the 
fact known to comparatively few that the doctor greatly 
enjoyed a good cigar, but because of his discovery that the 
odor of the fragrant weed was not agreeable to certain 
members of his household, he denied himself the satisfaction 



82 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

of indulging in it excepting when he went away to the 
presbytery, when he was doubtless satisfied that lighting 
one more cigar would not have any material effect upon the 
surrounding atmosphere. While it would be unjust to hint 
that this indulgence which the doctor thus allowed himself 
was an efficient cause for the regularity with which he 
always attended the judicatories of the church, it is never- 
theless pleasant to know that in this case at least, " virtue 
brought its own reward" to one who well deserved it. 

Although Presbyterianism in Baltimore undoubtedly 
owes more to him than to any other man who ever labored 
here, he was too great a man to belong to any single church 
or to any one denomination alone. His sympathies were 
as broad as humanity itself, but he was not one to let himself 
be so carried away by glittering generalities as to neglect 
special duties and obligations, nor did he ever allow his 
zeal for the public good to interfere with the claims of his 
own congregation. Every sermon he preached bore the 
impression of careful preparation and earnest study, but 
he himself stated more than once that it had been his habit 
for forty years to devote systematically five hours each 
day to the work of visiting his people. In short there was 
no relation of fife in which he found himself that he did 
not strive so faithfully and so successfully to discharge its 
duties, that view him from whatever point we may, he 
always displayed a character like that of the patriarch of 
Uz, in whom not even the Adversary himself could point 
out a single flaw, when asked, "Hast thou considered my 
servant Job that there is none like him in the earth, a per- 
fect and upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth 
evil?" 



REYNOLDS 83 

The session's narrative to presbytery for the year ending 
April 1886 states that while attendance at public worship 
was large, showing an encouraging increase at both services, 
there was a growing habit, as in many other congregations, 
of attending but one service a day, while on the other hand 
the children and youth of the congregation were all but univer- 
sally in attendance at the morning service, as well as a 
reasonable proportion of the children of the Sabbath School 
whose parents were not members of the congregation, also 
that at least one third of those present at Sabbath services 
were not professors of religion. 

In July 1887 the Men's Association for Christian Work 
consisting of male members of the First Presbyterian 
Church, who had organized about a year before for the sys- 
tematic prosecution of the various lines of church activity for 
which opportunities should from time to time be afforded, 
started a mission work on Hillen Street near the Western 
Maryland Railroad Station, under the name of "Hope 
Institute of the First Presbyterian Church;" it provided a 
free reading room for men and boys open every night in the 
week, it held devotional exercises on Sunday afternoons 
(soon changed to evenings), and maintained a sewing school 
on Saturday mornings, and a free kindergarden five days 
in the week, and a Sabbath School on Sunday afternoons. 
As the work grew the accommodations became inadequate 
and the following year a larger and better building, the 
upper story of a warehouse, at the corner of East and Hillen 
Streets, was leased for the Institute. On November i, 
1888, the Rev. S. A. Martin was engaged to conduct the 
preaching service on Sunday evenings, and on April i, 1889 
he was succeeded by Rev. Francis E. Smith, who under- 



84 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

took the general supervision of the religious meetings and 
pastoral visiting. Two years later he was succeeded by- 
Rev. William Caldwell, who remained in charge for nine 
years until April 1900. In the meantime the Men's Associa- 
tion, by a change of its constitution adopted in 189 1, became 
the Society of Christian Workers, and included members 
of both sexes; it still continued to have general charge of the 
work until the society was dissolved in the spring of 1902. 

Early in 1888 the church acquired a new organ of great 
sweetness and power, the gift of Elder William W. 
Spence, who on March 19 completed forty years of his 
service as an elder in this congregation; and during the same 
year was finished a new and handsome building, which was 
erected upon the rear of the church lot for the use of the 
Sabbath School and other church work; it was admirably 
adapted to its purposes, well lighted, ventilated and heated 
with all the best modern appliances then in use. 

On Sunday, February 5, 1893, Dr. Leftwich requested 
the congregation to remain after service to receive an 
announcement from him and after calling Elder Wm. W. 
Spence to preside, withdrew after placing in his hands a 
letter resigning his charge on account of his increasing bodily 
infirmities. The letter having been read to the congre- 
gation, was laid over for future consideration at a congre- 
gational meeting to be called by the session for the purpose. 
The chairman then announced that at a meeting of the Elders 
and Deacons and the Committee of the church, held two 
days before, the following paper had been adopted : 

Dr. James Turner Leftwich, our pastor, owing to increasing 
feebleness of health has felt constrained to tender his resignation. 
The congregation will learn of this with much pain, but it is 
unavoidable. In losing Dr. Leftwich our church loses a dear 



REYNOLDS 85 

friend and a faithful self-sacrificing pastor, whose well considered 
opinions and advice have been sought and much valued in 
presbytery, synod and assembly as that of a profound thinker 
and wise counsellor. He has served us faithfully for fourteen 
years. He has gone in and out amongst us in visiting our families 
as faithfully as his strength would permit, carrying comfort 
especially to those who were in sickness and sorrow, and all who 
received his comforting visits greatly appreciated his tender 
sympathy and kindly attentions. 

Retiring as he does with feeble health and without a sufficiency 
of private means to insure a comfortable support for himself and 
family, it is proposed that our congregation should raise a fund 
of $40,000 to be placed in the hands of the trustees of the church 
for the following purposes: the income from this fund to be paid 
to Dr. Leftwich for life and when our duty in that respect shall 
have passed away, the income to be used by the trustees in the 
preservation of the church building. 

It was further provided that the trustees should make 
some provision out of the income of the fund for Dr. Left- 
wich's family after his death should it, in their judgment, 
be necessary. These recommendations having been ap- 
proved by those present, the congregation was dismissed. 
It may be added here that a fund of $35,000 was raised 
shortly afterwards in the congregation by subscription for 
the purposes proposed in the foregoing paper and was duly 
applied by the trustees as therein directed. 

A congregational meeting was called for Sunday, Feb- 
ruary 19, 1893, after the morning service to take action 
on Dr. Lef twich's letter of resignation. In this letter, after 
stating that the cause which necessitated his resignation 
would at the same time terminate his active service in the 
ministry, he mentioned as a cause for thanksgiving that 
during his ministry "nearly all the dead at whose graves 
we have wept together have left ground for the hope that 



86 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OE BALTIMORE 

they were no sooner 'absent from the body than present 
with the Lord/ that at every celebration of the Lord's 
Supper some penitents have for the first time sat with us 
in the heavenly places in Christ, that your ever multiplying 
activities reveal a corresponding growth in your spiritual 
life and energies, and that there opens before you a pros- 
pect of increasing numbers and efficiency on whose horizon 
rests no cloud." 

He further recorded the fact that " while few sessions 
have been called upon to pass upon questions more important 
and diverse your elders have yet to adopt a measure by a 
divided vote, action on every case in which opinions have 
differed being held in suspense until wisdom was given us 
to be of one mind as we were of one heart." 

The congregation feeling constrained to unite with Dr. 
Leftwich, reluctantly elected three commissioners to repre- 
sent it before the presbytery for that purpose, but in so 
doing expressed its great sorrow at the termination of his 
relation with it, and also the hope that he might if possible 
continue his ministration at least until the time for taking 
his usual summer vacation. 



CHAPTER VI 

DR. WITHERSPOON'S PASTORATE 1894-1897 

At a congregational meeting held on May 7, 1893 a 
committee of five persons was chosen to select a pastor and 
make report to a future meeting. They reported on May 
28, recommending the election of Rev. Theron H. Rice, Jr. 
of the Second Presbyterian Church of Alexandria, Virginia, 
who was accordingly elected, but declined the call. At a 
congregational meeting held October 16, 1893 the committee 
recommended the election of Rev. Jere Witherspoon, D.D., 
then pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Nashville, 
Tennessee. Dr. Witherspoon was elected and a call extended 
to him which he accepted. He entered on his pastoral 
duties December 24, 1893, an d was formally installed on 
March 6, 1894. 

On January 18, 1894 the session determined that in order 
to invest the reception of members into the church with 
more solemnity and publicity than heretofore, those re- 
ceived from this time forth be required to make public 
profession of their faith and of their desire to unite with 
the church prior to the long prayer in morning service of 
Communion Sabbath. The practice thus inaugurated was 
kept up during Dr. Witherspoon's pastorate, but after his 
resignation and during the long interval which elapsed 
before the election of his successor it was discontinued by 
tacit consent but has been resumed since Dr. Alfred H. 
Barr became pastor. 

87 



88 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

On May n, 1894, Mr. Andrew Reid, a member of the 
committee of the church, offered to advance the necessary 
funds, not to exceed twenty thousand dollars, to pay for 
the erection upon the lot owned by the church on the North 
side of Madison Street near Harford Avenue of a building 
suitable for the use of the mission work then carried 
on under the auspices and care of the First Presbyterian 
Church in the eastern part of the city, as a memorial to his 
two deceased children, to include a brass tablet in an appro- 
priate place in the building bearing the following or an 
equivalent inscription: 

To the Glory of God and in memory of 
Brooke G. Reid, died aged 19 years, and 
Fanny L. R. Browning, died aged 27 years, 
This building is erected by their father and mother, 
Andrew and Fanny B. Reid, A.D. MDCCCXCIV. 

This generous gift was gratefully accepted by the session 
and the committee of the church and a building committee 
was appointed at the suggestion of the donor consisting of 
Messrs. Andrew Reid, Elisha H. Perkins, Jr., John V. L. 
Graham, W. Hall Harris, Douglas M. Wylie and James I. 
Fisher. The building was immediately begun and was 
completed in the spring of 1897 at the cost of $28,000 and 
formally dedicated and turned over to the church on 
Sunday, March 31 of that year, being thenceforth known 
as the "Reid Memorial Hope Mission." 

On February 25,1897 Rev. James Turner Leftwich,D.D., 
fifth pastor of the First Presbyterian Church died at Liberty 
(now Bedford City), Virginia, where he was born on Janu- 



REYNOLDS 89 

ary 3, 1835. The failure of his eyesight was the immediate 
cause of his resigning his pastorate but for several years 
before doing so he had been a great sufferer from sciatica 
which had completely broken down his once vigorous consti- 
tution. Sunday after Sunday he had limped into his pulpit 
leaning heavily upon his cane while every nerve in his body 
was quivering with acute agony, until having got well 
under way in the services he was so carried away with 
the subject of his discourse as to become utterly oblivious 
to all bodily weakness and pain. He was undoubtedly a 
greater preacher than any of his predecessors with the 
possible exception of Dr. Inglis. As a period of nearly 
sixty years had elapsed between the death of Dr. Inglis 
in 1819 and the beginning of Dr. Leftwich's pastorate in 
January 1879, few if any persons were surviving at the latter 
date who had ever heard Dr. Inglis preach and the few 
printed sermons of the latter which we possess are inade- 
quate for the purpose of making comparison between them. 
But beyond all question Dr. Leftwich was in every way a 
great preacher. Gifted by nature with a wonderful command 
of language and rare powers of imagination and fancy 
which won for him at college a reputation for eloquence, 
the traditions of which still lingered there for many years 
after all his class-mates had been graduated, and which had 
caused them to predict confidently for him a brilliant career 
at the bar or in political life, it seems that upon entering 
the ministry, he deliberately subordinated those powers 
and held them in check in obedience to his desire to preach 
the simple gospel truth without regard to himself or his 
own reputation as a speaker. And yet at times these would 
assert themselves in striking imagery and give his hearers 



90 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

a taste of what he might have accomplished as a mere word- 
painter had he been willing to indulge his own self-love at 
the expense of what was ever present in his mind and con- 
stituted the absorbing passion of his life — a sense of duty. 
None of those present at the trial of Dr. Briggs before the 
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church at Wash- 
ington in 1893 could soon forget the thrill which passed 
through that body when Dr. Lef twich closed a three minute 
speech by describing the church which should reject the 
authority of the scriptures as its absolute rule of faith and 
practice as "a rudderless ship in a starless night, upon a 
shoreless ocean." 

His method of preparing his sermons was peculiar. Al- 
though every one of them was carefully studied out and pre- 
pared before hand, it was never committed to writing until 
the day after its delivery, when he generally wrote it out in 
full to preserve it for future reference when he should have 
occasion to refer to the same subject another time. He 
once stated in the presence of the writer that he never could 
preach the same sermon the second time. He said that he 
knew that some of his brethren had sermons that they 
preached over and over again with great effect but added: 
"I cannot do it. I feel that every sermon I preach must 
be prepared with special reference to the audience to whom 
and the occasion upon which it is to be delivered." He 
had but one test he always applied when discussing the 
sermons which distinguished ministers from time to time 
delivered in his pulpit. He would say, "What lesson was 
that sermon designed to teach and how did it teach it?" 
This test which he applied to the sermons of others was 
the same to which he subjected his own. 



REYNOLDS 91 

Some five or six years before his death a prominent 
member of the Baltimore bar whose personal acquaintance 
with Dr. Lef twich was very slight and who had no sympathy 
whatever with either his theological opinions or religious 
connections and was therefore entirely free from personal or 
party bias in his favor, in the course of a private conver- 
sation with the writer in discussing the relative merits and 
methods of the greatest public speakers of the day, said : 
"I think that Dr. Lef twich of your church is beyond all 
question the finest rhetorician I ever heard. In using this 
word I do not use it in the vulgar sense of a man who indulges 
in florid elocution or studied declamation, but in its proper 
sense as of one who has the power to express in clear, terse 
and forcible language the precise shade of meaning that he 
wishes to convey. You may take any one of Dr. Left- 
wich's sentences and pull it to pieces and reconstruct it, 
but you cannot substitute a single word, you cannot change 
its arrangement without weakening the clearness or the 
strength of the idea which he undertakes to convey." 
But Dr. Leftwich was far more than a rhetorician even in 
this high sense; he was a clear and vigorous thinker, and it 
was the idea and the thought behind his language which 
gave him such a power of expression. He would begin by 
laying down premises so self-evident that none dare dispute 
them, and then draw his hearers step by step with the chain 
of his irresistible logic to conclusions from which there was 
left no apparent avenue of -escape. And in doing this he 
drew his words from a well of English as undefiled as that 
of Chaucer himself and wove them with matchless skill into 
sentences as chaste, as unadorned and yet as perennially 
charming as the Doric columns of those Grecian Temples 



02 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

which have delighted the world for more than twenty 
centuries. 

Though lacking that power of initiative in devising new 
schemes of Christian activity possessed in such an eminent 
degree by his predecessor, Dr. Backus, he nevertheless 
always showed remarkable judgment in estimating the 
value of the schemes suggested by others, and had great 
success in carrying through whatever enterprise he under- 
took. His forte however was rather in convincing bodies 
of men than in persuading individuals singly, as was demon- 
strated by the influence that he invariably exercised in the 
debates of every deliberative body of which he was a member, 
from the church session up to the General Assembly, in- 
cluding all the committees of any of these bodies on which 
he was appointed. When sitting in a judicatory he was 
always an attentive listener and rarely spoke until he felt 
that he had fully grasped the situation and that there was 
something he felt called to say upon the pending question. 
And when he did speak that question was usually settled in 
the way that he suggested. 

With all his powers however he was of a singularly modest, 
retiring and unobtrusive nature. He had that nice regard 
for the sensibilities of others which made it more painful 
to him to be obliged to say what might be taken as a dis- 
approving word of another, than it was to receive a slight 
himself, for he had what is sometimes called a " Presby- 
terian Conscience" which never allowed him to spare him- 
self in the discharge of what he believed to be his duty, 
however it might affect his own feelings, his comfort or his 
health. Yet although he never shrank from the full dis- 
charge of any duty that he felt he owed to others, he did 



REYNOLDS 93 

not make the mistake of setting up his own conscience as 
the rule by which to judge his neighbor. He felt that every 
man must be the judge of the measure of his own responsi- 
bility and must therefore decide for himself how far he 
should refrain from things not evil themselves. There was 
nothing of the ascetic about him, and he always maintained 
that the good things of this life are gifts of a loving Father 
to be received with thajikfulness and enjoyed with gratitude 
so long as they do not interfere with the performance of 
some positive duty. Dr. J. Sparhawk Jones, referring to 
this side of his character, says, "I enjoyed my intercourse 
with him especially during the two winters which I had 
contact with him in the First Church. His affability, 
geniality and humor and unfailing kindness and cordiality 
of manner could not fail to capture any one admitted to 
his friendship. He was a delightful conversationalist, full 
of anecdote and reminiscences. I loved to hear him talk, 
for he had always something instructive, suggestive or 
sprightly, and his speech was full of maturity and wisdom. 
And along with his sound instincts and fine practised sense 
and correct judgment and clear vision of things there went 
also a generous consideration for others, a tact, urbanity 
and polish of manner and sweetness of disposition that 
were charming and conciliatory of those who might differ 
from him." 

But above all things Dr. Leftwich was an eminently 
sincere man. He was absolutely sincere in all things — so 
much so that he invariably impressed every one with whom 
he had relations with the sense of his sincerity. And it 
was this perfect sincerity, simplicity and kindliness of his 
character that so greatly endeared him to all with whom he 
was brought into contact. 



94 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CUHRCH OF BALTIMORE 

On October 27, 1897 Dr. Witherspoon resigned his 
charge to accept a call to Grace Church at Richmond, 
Virginia. During his comparatively brief pastorate of not 
quite four years Dr. Witherspoon had greatly endeared 
himself to many of his congregation by the faithful and 
assiduous manner in which he had discharged the duties 
of his office and his departure was felt by them not only to 
involve the loss of an efficient and devoted pastor, but a 
separation from a well beloved personal friend. He carried 
this affection with him to his new home where his minis- 
trations proved eminently successful in every way among 
his own congregation, and also won for him in an equal 
degree the honor and esteem of the entire community into 
which he came and their warm affection he retained to the 
time of his death on October 28, 1909. A direct lineal 
descendant of the eminent Presbyterian divine, College 
President and signer of the Declaration of Independence, 
John Witherspoon, he seemed entitled by inheritance to a 
high place in the Christian ministry and in the work of 
morally and intellectually uplifting his countrymen, and 
if , in discharging the duties to which he was from time to time 
providentially called he was not brought as conspicuously 
before the general public as was his illustrious ancestor 
during his career, he nevertheless always discharged those 
duties in such a manner as to cause the recipients of his 
ministrations to hold him long in grateful remembrance 
for the assiduous devotion, loving zeal and Christian cour- 
tesy with which he sought to do his Master's will. 

At the congregational meeting held December 15, 1897, 
Messrs. William H. Dix and William Reynolds were elected 
elders. They were ordained on January 9, 1898. 



REYNOLDS 95 

On January 19, 1898, the congregation appointed a 
committee of seven to select a pastor and they reported 
May 11, 1898, recommending the election of Rev. Donald 
Guthrie, late minister of the Presbyterian Church at Walker- 
ton, Canada, who was then acting as temporary assistant 
to Rev. Dr. Moses D. Hoge in the Second Presbyterian 
Church at Richmond, Virginia; and a call was accordingly 
extended to him. About the same time however, he received 
a call to be associate pastor of the Second Presbyterian 
Church at Richmond, which he felt it to be his duty to 
accept under existing circumstances and therefore declined 
the call to Baltimore. 

On February 12, 1899, the congregation elected Rev. 
James I. Vance, D.D., of Nashville as its pastor, but after 
consideration he declined the call and decided to remain 
at Nashville. 



CHAPTER VII 

dr. guthrie's pastorate i 899-1 910 

On November 12, 1899, after Dr. Hoge's death, the 
congregation of the First Church extended a second call 
to Dr. Guthrie which he accepted and entered upon the 
duties of his ministry on December 5 and was duly installed 
by the presbytery on December 18, 1899. He had made 
it one of the conditions of his acceptance that he should 
continue to wear in the pulpit the Geneva gown and bands 
as he had been accustomed to do in Canada. 

On January 5, 1900, the session having as already stated 
rescinded its action of June 30, 1894, constituting the 
Musical Society of the First Presbyterian Church the 
church choir, and having resumed the direct control of the 
music through its own committee, reorganized the choir 
by appointing Mr. S. Archer Gibson choirmaster and or- 
ganist and Mr. Harry Fahnestock Business Manager. 

On March 6, 1900, Rev. William Caldwell resigned his 
position of Minister in Charge of Hope Mission to take 
effect during the following month and on June 14 the session 
appointed Rev. Frederick H. Barron of Toronto, Canada, 
to succeed him. He was ordained as an evangelist by the 
Presbytery of Baltimore in October of the same year. 
During the last six years of Mr. Caldwell's ministry at Hope 
Mission quite a congregation had been collected there and 
religious services were held morning and evening on Sunday 
and also on Wednesday evenings in the new Reid Mem- 

96 



REYNOLDS 97 

orial building, in addition to the Sunday School and the 
institutional work there carried on. 

On January 31, 1901, the session decided on the publi- 
cation of a monthly paper to be called "Our Church Work," 
designed for the purpose of keeping all the members fully in- 
formed about, and more closely in touch with, all the Chris- 
tian activities engaged in by the various societies and other 
organizations connected with the congregation. The first 
number was issued April 1 and the paper continued until 
November 1909 when by action of the session it was com- 
bined with the weekly bulletin. 

On February 9, 1901 Messrs. Edward H. Griffin, David 
F. Haynes and George H. Rodgers were elected elders and 
Messrs. Edward F. Arthurs, C. Braxton Dallam, Harry 
Fahnestock, A. Crawford Smith and Dr. Bernard C. Steiner 
were elected deacons. They were ordained March 10. 

In the early part of 1902 the congregation at the Reid 
Memorial having expressed a desire for greater indepen- 
dence, with a view to becoming an independent congre- 
gation in the near future, and there having arisen some 
friction in consequence of the institutional work and the 
Sunday School being under the control of the society of 
Christian Workers, it was decided by the session on March 
19, 1902, to put the entire work under the control of a 
committee of the session acting through the minister in 
charge, and the Society of Christian Workers was accord- 
ingly dissolved. 

On April 2, 1902, Messrs. G. Frank Baily and A. Crawford 
Smith were elected elders and Dr. Charles J. Keller and 
Mr. I. Evans Rodgers were elected deacons. They were 
ordained April 13. 



98 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

On October 19, 1902, the session engaged Rev. R. L. 
Walton of Virginia as assistant to the minister for one year. 
At the end of his term no successor was appointed. 

On October 29, 1902, Rev. John S. Conning, of Walkerton, 
Canada, was appointed minister in charge of the Reid 
Memorial to succeed Rev. Frederick H. Barron, who had 
resigned to accept a call to the Presbyterian Church at 
Elkins, West Virginia. The amount appropriated by the 
session for the work at Reid Memorial for the year 1903 was 

$3,5°°- 

In October 1903 the session, upon the initiative and under 

the leadership of Dr. Guthrie, established and took under 
its care a Presbyterian Deaconesses' Home at Baltimore, 
being the first institution of its kind organized under the 
auspices of the Presbyterian Church of America. Its 
objects were, 1st: To provide an education and training 
for suitable women in the Presbyterian Church for service 
in its congregations and mission work; and 2nd: To main- 
tain a home for Deaconesses who may desire to remain in 
connection with the Institution and exercise their calling 
under its direction. It was supported by funds subscribed 
for the purpose by members of the congregation of the 
First Presbyterian Church and others, supplemented by 
appropriations made by the session from the benevolent 
fund of the church. It was started in a small rented house, 
No. 925 E. Preston Street with Dr. Charlotte S. Murdoch, 
(the daughter of an elder of the First Church, who had 
just passed through the necessary preparatory training in 
the Lutheran Deaconess Home at Baltimore,) as Superin- 
tendent. She subsequently married Dr. Andrew Young 
and went with him to China where both are now serving 



REYNOLDS 99 

as Medical Missionaries under the Scotch Baptist Society. 
There were three other Deaconesses in training with Rev. 
John S. Conning as minister in charge. Several months 
later, on January 14, 1904 the session of the First Church 
adopted the following resolutions concerning this under- 
taking on its part: 

1. That the session of this church considers the work of 
the Deaconesses' Home one for the church at large, although 
undertaken by the First Church, and it earnestly hopes 
the day will come when it may prove its usefulness in the 
larger Presbyterian community. 

2. That it is the policy of the session to carry on the work 
of the Deaconesses' Home with a view to the election of a 
General Board of Directors at some time and in such manner 
as this session may deem advisable — the Board thus cre- 
ated to have powers such as usually pertain to such Boards 
and to assume the financial support of the Institution. 

3. That this session through the pastor in charge of the 
Home is desirous of announcing to the other churches its 
policy as above declared in regard to the future of this 
work. 

The hope thus expressed was speedily realized, and the work 
of the Deaconesses' Home found favor in the eyes of promi- 
nent Presbyterians all over the country. Soon the session 
was overwhelmed with more volunteers for the work than 
it had the means to accommodate, and more applications 
from the congregations, in and out of the city for the services 
of deaconesses than it was able to supply. 

The modern developement of the Deaconess movement 
began in 1836 when pastor Fliedner of the Lutheran Church 
at Kaiserwerth founded in that city the first Deaconesses' 



IOO FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

Institution, which has since so developed that there are now, 
in connection with the Kaiserwerth Conference, eighty 
Mother houses, or Deaconesses' Institutions, having asso- 
ciated with them eighteen thousand deaconesses. The move- 
ment was introduced into America in 1849 by Dr. W. A. Pas- 
savant of Pittsburg. Little progress was made for a period 
of about 25 years; but since then it has spread rapidly in 
all the leading denominations, and no less than one hundred 
and forty Deaconesses' Institutions have been founded 
within the last fifteen years in the United States alone. The 
movement was first introduced into the Presbyterian 
Church in 1889 when the Deaconesses' Institution and 
Training School in Edinburgh was established under the 
authority of the General Assembly of the Church of Scot- 
land. In 1892 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States of America adopted the follow- 
ing resolution : " That this General Assembly recognizes the 
imperative need for a more systematic training of women 
workers, which shall adapt them to the opening spheres of 
work at home and abroad and earnestly recommends to 
the Synods and Presbyteries, the establishment, as oppor- 
tunity offers, of institutions and training homes for the 
instruction and training of godly women duly recommended 
by sessions and presbyteries for practical Christian work." 
It was a little over eleven years after the passage of this 
resolution that the session of the First Presbyterian Church 
began the work of carrying out the recommendation thereby 
made by establishing the first Presbyterian Deaconesses' 
Home in America. So soon as the movement was actually 
started it received the commendation and hearty support 
of leading Presbyterians throughout the country, among 



REYNOLDS IOI 

whom may be named Professor Benjamin B. Warfield of 
Princeton Theological Seminary, Rev. Hugh Black of 
Union Theological Seminary, Rev. Wallace A. Radcliffe of 
Washington City, Rev. Marcus A. Bronson of Philadelphia, 
Rev. Charles N. Erdman of Germantown, Rev. J. Ross 
Stevenson of New York and Mr. Robert E. Speer, Secre- 
tary of the Board of Foreign Missions. 

In an article contributed to the Presbyterian Journal by 
Rev. Wilfred W. Shaw in November 1903 several weeks 
after the Deaconess Home had been opened, it is thus 
described: "A project has lately been started in Balti- 
more which has already created considerable interest, and 
which is sure to do still more so in the future. This is the 
Deaconess Home established in connection with the First 
Church. While there are instances of individual deacon- 
esses working in some Presbyterian Churches this is, so far 
as known, the first move outside of individual congregations 
to provide deaconesses for the Presbyterian Church at 
large. Some years ago Dr. Warfield, we believe, brought 
the matter up in the General Assembly, and it was sent 
down to the Presbyteries, and seemed so far as is known 
content to stay there. The Home just established has grown 
out of the needs of the field. Reid Memorial Church, a 
child of the First Church, is in the midst of a densely popu- 
lated district in the eastern part of Baltimore; and it was 
found that something in addition to the ordinary methods 
of church work was needed to reach the people. The 
solution of the problem seemed to lie in more effective 
personal contact. How was this to be brought about? No 
pastor was able to meet all the demands of the case and it 
was felt that to have the best results there must be trained 



102 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

workers. To provide for these after much deliberation 
the Deaconess Home was established. A plain, comfortable 
house 925 East Preston Street has been rented for a year, 
and here the beginnings of a work which is surely destined 
to develope largely in the future are to be seen." After 
describing the building and plant he continues: "At 
present there are five Deaconesses in the Home, but other 
applications are already on file and the number will soon 
be increased. No better selection could have been made 
for the head of the Home than the one chosen, Dr. Charlotte 
S. Murdoch. The daughter of an honored Presbyterian 
elder, Dr. Russell Murdoch — a graduate in medicine, a cul- 
tured Christian lady, and a most attractive personality, — 
the directors of the Home are to be congratulated in securing 
such an one to guide the affairs at the beginning. 

"At present the work is divided into five sections and 
each deaconess takes up each branch in rotation. There 
is the Home deaconess; the one who works in connection 
with the Kindergarten; the parish visitor; the Sabbath 
School visitor, and the one who works among the sick. 

"In addition to the practical work Dr. Charlotte Murdoch 
lectures several times a week to the probationers on anatomy, 
nursing and medical hygiene. Dr. Guthrie, pastor of the 
First Church gives instruction in Christian doctrine and 
church history. Rev. J. S. Conning, pastor of the Reid 
Memorial Church, who is very closely identified with the 
work of the Home, has classes for Bible Study, pastoral 
theology, psychology and pedagogics. In addition to these 
various courses of lectures are being arranged to be under- 
taken by different neighboring pastors. 

"The aim is to fit the deaconesses for thorough work in 



REYNOLDS IO3 

any of our churches. Practical training is given in teaching, 
the care of the sick and such parish work as may be properly 
assigned to a deaconess in a modern church. For the first 
three months after coming to the Home they are in the posi- 
tion of candidates; then for two years or more probationers, 
and after that deaconesses, when they are available for work 
in the individual churches. 

" Those who enter take no vow or pledge of any kind, 
and are free to leave at any time on giving due notice. At 
the same time it is expected that those who apply for 
admission shall be fully persuaded that the work of a deacon- 
ess is their providential calling not to be lightly undertaken 
or lightly laid aside. If the candidate is accepted at the 
close of the three months, the Home assumes all responsibility 
for board, lodging and maintenance during the rest of the 
life of the deaconess provided she retains her connection 
with the Home. They will be cared for in sickness and 
old age as well as when engaged in active work. When 
any individual church wishes to secure the services of a 
worker all arrangements for this are made directly with 
the Home and not with the individual deaconesses who go 
where the Home sends them. 

"At present the First Church has assumed all the finan- 
cial obligation of this work; but if it develops in the future 
as is expected the basis of support may probably be enlarged 
also. At present there is not accommodation in the Home 
for more than eight, but if more suitable applicants present 
themselves, further accommodations will be secured. 

" Already to the minds of the promoters there are visions 
of a Mother Deaconess' Home from which supplies of 
trained competent workers can be drawn, not simply to aid 



104 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OE BALTIMORE 

in Christian work in our city churches at home but to go 
out to our far-off mission fields and by the skilled, effective 
and loving service which they shall render, bring about 
more speedily the glad day when the knowledge of the Lord 
shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." 

Within two years after this enterprise was launched the 
vision of its founders of a Mother Deaconesses' Home began 
to be realized. In January 1905 Mrs. John S. Gilman, a 
member of the First Church, bought the large building at 
the Northwest corner of Madison Avenue and Preston 
Street, then occupied by the Egenton Orphan Asylum, an 
institution under the care of the First Church, and offered 
to give it for the use of a Deaconesses' Home whenever such 
an Institution should be established by the Presbyterians 
of Baltimore, and on April 28, of the same year the Presby- 
terian Deaconess Home and Training School in the city of 
Baltimore was duly incorporated and its management 
vested in a Board of twelve directors consisting of Prof. 
Benjamin B. Warfield of Princeton Theological Seminary, 
Rev. Wallace A. Radcliffe of Washington, D.C., Rev. 
Marcus A. Bronson of Philadelphia, Rev. Donald Guthrie, 
Rev. Robert P. Kerr, Rev. John P. Campbell of Baltimore, 
Dr. Edward H. Griffin and Mr. Elisha H. Perkins of the 
First Church, Mr. Robert Garrett and Dr. John M. T. 
Finney of Brown Memorial Church, Messrs. Robert H. 
Smith of the Second Church and Theodore K. Miller of the 
Central Presbyterian Church of Baltimore City. Of these 
Dr. Guthrie was elected President, Dr. Radcliffe, Vice- 
President and Mr. Robert Garrett, Treasurer. Rev. John S. 
Conning was appointed Superintendent, and the Deaconess 



REYNOLDS 105 

Home became from this time forward a distinct self-govern- 
ing organization independent of the First Church. 

On April 25, 1904, the congregation at the Reid Memorial 
was organized by the Presbytery as a separate church with 
the Rev. John S. Conning as its pastor. 

On June 1, 1905, was formed the Men's Society of the 
First Church for the purpose of carrying on church work 
in the congregation along religious, social and benevolent 
lines. 

On November 28, 1905, the Egenton Orphan Asylum, a 
private eleemosynary institution incorporated by the State 
of Maryland in the year i860 in furtherance of a bequest 
in the will of William Egenton, a member of the First 
Presbyterian Church who died in February 1836, moved 
into its new buildings on Merryman and Cedar Avenues. 
By the provisions of the will of the Founder and of its 
charter this institution has always been under the control 
of a board of twelve managers, annually elected by the 
adult male communicant members of the First Presby- 
terian Church from their own munber, together with the 
pastor of said church for the time being, and has been for 
this reason so intimately connected with the Church, that 
it is deemed proper to include its history in that of the 
Church. 

Mr. Egenton had an only daughter who died before him 
when only five or six years old. She had early shown a 
marked and precocious fondness for looking after and taking 
care of all the younger children with whom she came into 
contact, and was constantly insisting upon having them 
call her their " Little Mother.' f Her father, greatly pleased 



106 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

with this trait one day promised her that he would make 
her a mother indeed to a great many little children. After 
her death he sought to carry out the spirit of this promise 
by making a will whereby he bequeathed the entire residue 
of his estate, after payment of debts and legacies, to his 
executors in trust for the purpose of establishing in the 
city of Baltimore an Institute for the Support of Destitute 
White Female Orphan Children, to be under the manage- 
ment and control of twelve persons therein named and the 
pastor for the time being of the First Presbyterian Church in 
the City of Baltimore, and in case of any of said managers de- 
clining to serve, dying, or removing to a distance, he directed 
the remaining managers to supply their places by choosing 
others from among the adult male members of said Church 
in full communion therewith so as to keep up the number 
of twelve managers besides the Pastor. 

On November 20, 1859 the survivors of the managers 
named in the will met and after filling the vacancies in 
their number by electing six new managers in the place of 
those who had died, determined to apply for an act of 
incorporation under the name of the Egenton Orphan 
Asylum of the City of Baltimore, which was granted by the 
legislature and issued under the seal of the State of Mary- 
land on March 10, i860. After the formal acceptance of 
this charter on April 23, i860 at a meeting called and an 
election of managers held thereunder, nothing further was 
done by the board towards establishing the proposed Asylum 
until November 29, 1875, when for the first time they felt 
that the accumulations of the residue of the Egenton Estate 
which then amounted to $38,174.07 were sufficient to 
warrant them in undertaking it. In December 1879 they 



REYNOLDS 107 

purchased the house and lot corner of Preston Street and 
Madison Avenue, and on April 8, 1880 opened the Asylum 
which on October following received its first orphans six 
in number. By May 19, 1882 these had increased to seven- 
teen and only one more was received during the next five 
years; but after July 1887 the number of girls was gradually 
increased to thirty which was about as many as the building 
could then conveniently accommodate. It was originally 
managed by a Matron who was under the supervision of 
a visiting committee of twenty-seven ladies appointed 
annually by the Managers from the membership of the 
First Presbyterian Church. Three of these visiting ladies 
filled the positions of President, Vice-President and Secre- 
tary of their committee and the remaining twenty-four 
took turns, two of them going each month, to visit and 
supervise the Matron. The divergencies in the views of 
the successive supervisors having from time to time created 
some friction in administration, it was in February 1894 
decided at the request of the ladies to discontinue their 
Visiting Committee, and vest the entire administration of the 
Asylum in one Principal who should be directly responsible 
to the Board of Managers alone, and on April 27, 1894 the 
first Principal Miss Alice Haines was elected. 

At the time the Executor and Trustee under Mr. Egenton's 
will turned over the residue of his estate to the Managers 
of the Asylum in October 1880, this residue consisted 
principally of real estate in Baltimore City and a lot in New 
York City fronting 100 feet on Third Ave., with depth of 
250 feet on 84th Street, then leased to a tenant who paid 
the rent of $1,400 a year, most of which was absorbed by 
the taxes and necessary repairs. In searching the title to 



108 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

this property incidentally to making a new lease serious 
defects were found in it and prompt steps were taken to 
cure them. All the Baltimore heirs-at-law of Mr. Egen- 
ton representing three-fifths interest, voluntarily executed 
quit-claim deeds to the Asylum, and a Mr. Willis of New 
York who was entitled to control an undivided one-fifth 
interest in any property of the Founder of which he died in- 
testate, agreed to procure a perfectly good title to the Asyl- 
lum for this and the remaining outstanding one-fifth interest 
in the property on payment of $7,000 and the execution to 
him of a lease for 21 years with specified rights of renewal 
thereafter, at the annual amount of $3,500, he paying all 
taxes and assessments. This offer of Mr. Willis was accepted 
but subsequently the board became involved in litigation 
with him, which was finally settled in December 1881 by 
payment to him of a certain sum of money in full satis- 
faction of all his claims against the property and against 
the Asylum. 

The property was subsequently divided into ten lots, 
four of them fronting on Third Avenue and the others on 
Eighty-fourth Street, and each of them leased for a term of 
twenty-one years with rights of renewal for two more 
successive terms of the same length at rents aggregating 
$6,000 a year clear of all taxes and expense of every kind. 
The effect of this was to raise the income of the Asylum 
to an amount almost double that of its expenditures as 
then conducted and to thus enable the Managers to invest 
from $5,000 to $6,000 every year in good securities for the 
Institution. 

In February 1894, the Managers, convinced that the 
building corner of Madison Avenue and Preston Street 



REYNOLDS IO9 

then occupied by the Asylum was inadequate for its needs, 
appointed a committee to consider the propriety of buying 
a lot for a new location, but no site was determined upon 
until more than two years later, when a tract of eight and 
and one half acres of land at the corner of Merryman's Lane 
and Cedar Avenue was bought from the estate of the late 
John W. Garrett in August 1896, and an architect was 
employed to prepare plans for suitable buildings, which 
were duly submitted to the Board of Managers. Owing 
however to the general financial disturbances which began 
to prevail at that time the project of building was tempo- 
rarily laid aside. No definite course was agreed upon until 
November 3, 1904, when it was resolved to erect a new 
building upon the Cedar Avenue lot and new plans were 
prepared and considered. On December 16, of the same 
year a committee was appointed to visit and inspect as 
many of the best appointed Orphan Asylums as could be 
reached within a convenient distance of Baltimore and to 
report at an early day to the Board of Managers; and on 
January 23, 1905, this committee made its report recom- 
mending that the Asylum should hereafter be conducted 
on what is known as the " Household System" and that 
there should be three separate buildings each of them built 
to accommodate one of the three separate households. This 
report, which necessitated an entire renovation of the plans 
theretofore under consideration, was adopted after a full dis- 
cussion and the buildings now occupied were erected in 
accordance with the Committee's recommendation. The 
Asylum was removed to them a few weeks later than twenty- 
five years after the date of its first opening on Madison 
Avenue, and it is confidently hoped that the experience of 



IIO FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

its second quarter of a century, beginning in its new and 
admirably equipped buildings and with its new name of 
the Egenton Home conferred by an amendment to its 
Charter approved March 15, 1906, will prove even more 
gratifying and successful than that of its first twenty-five 
years. 

Its records show that eighty-seven girls were received 
into the Asylum down to the time of its removal. Of these 
one had died of diphtheria eight years before, six had been 
formally adopted as children into the families of well-to- 
do persons, five had been dismissed because their further 
continuance in the Institution was deemed to be inadvisable, 
ten under twelve years had been discharged to the care of 
relatives, who desired to assume the charge and were in 
circumstances which enabled them to do so in a manner 
that the Managers considered to be for the best interest 
of the children, for thirty-three more after remaining in 
the Asylum until they had reached or nearly reached the 
age of eighteen years there were found situations in which 
they were able to earn a decent support and in almost every 
case they have turned out to be young women who have 
proved themselves a credit to the Institution and have 
daily cause to bless the memory of that " Little Mother' ' 
for whose sake the founder was moved to provide the means 
to receive, shelter, care for and educate them during the 
helpless years of childhood. The remaining thirty-two 
girls continued inmates of the Home after removal to its 
new quarters. 

The new buildings consist of three separate two story 
and a half brick enclosures with slate roofs connected by 
open porticos and known as East Cottage, Central Cottage 



REYNOLDS III 

and West Cottage respectively. Each of these Cottages 
is intended to accommodate a family of from seventeen to 
twenty-one girls besides the Cottage Mothers. The 
Central Cottage which is larger than the others, is also to 
be used as an administration building, containing the Mana- 
ger's Room, Superintendent's office and living quarters, 
Spence Hall, School room, Gymnasium, Laundry, and 
Library, in addition to the quarters provided for the family 
of girls living there. The buildings are well equipped with 
furnace heat, water and electric light. Owing to the small 
number of girls, who have not often exceeded thirty at one 
time, the East Cottage has never been used. The buildings 
were erected and equipped at an original cost of a little over 
$76,000 and the invested funds of the Home yield at the 
present time an annual income of $11,500, the current 
expenses for the year averaging about $1,000 less. These 
figures compared with the $38,174.07 turned over to them 
by Mr. Egenton's Executor in November 1875 together 
with the New York property with a defective title and then 
yielding little or no income make a most creditable showing 
for the financial management of the Managers during the 
long period of thirty-eight years, during which it has been 
under their control, and there can be little doubt but that 
a great measure of their success must be attributed to the 
good judgment and untiring labor of Mr. Wm. W. Spence, 
who has been their Treasurer from the beginning to the 
present time, and has always taken the deepest interest 
in the Home. 

On December 2, 1906 individual communion cups were 
first used at the administration of the Sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper and on December 1 2, of the same year Messrs. 



112 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

Colin Grant, Calvin W. Hendrick and Dr. Bernard C. Steiner 
were elected ruling elders. The two first named were in- 
stalled and Dr. Steiner was ordained on January 6, 1907. 

Early in the fall of 1907 the monthly concerts of prayer 
for foreign missions, which had for some years past been 
discontinued, were resumed regularly at the Wednesday 
evening service. On October 18, the session adopted 
Paoting-fu, China, as its parish abroad and the object to 
the support of which its contributions for foreign missions 
should be thereafter offered, in place of supporting specially 
named missionaries as heretofore; and in February 1908, 
the Men's Society undertook the support of Dr. Charles 
Lewis, Medical Missionary at Paoting-fu, at a salary of 
$6co per annum. 

In October 1908, the session of the Reid Memorial Church 
in view of the removal of families from its vicinity and of 
the increasing difficulty of getting new families into the 
church because of marked changes in the character of the 
population in the neighborhood and because of the apparent 
inability of the congregation to render adequate financial 
support, and because of the resignation of its pastor and a 
widespread disintegration which followed his resignation 
and in view of the cordial assurance of welcome to the mem- 
bership of Faith Church extended by its session, advised its 
members to apply for letters of dismissal to Faith Church. 
Most of them did this and, the congregation was dissolved 
by the presbytery, early in February 1909, which restored 
the use of the building of Reid Memorial Mission to the 
First Church. The session being unwilling to undertake 
the charge of establishing a new mission work there at this 
time, the Committee on April 8, 1909 leased the premises 



REYNOLDS 113 

at a nominal rent for the term of one year to the Presby- 
terian Deaconess Home and Training School "to be used 
and occupied for the proper uses and purposes of its work 
in charitable and institutional lines in no manner incon- 
sistent with the gift of the buildings on said premises upon 
condition that it would neither use or permit the use of 
said property or any part thereof for any other purpose 
whatsoever.' ' 

A year afterwards a society called the Reid Memorial 
Guild, consisting of representatives appointed by the 
several cooperating Presbyterian Churches of Baltimore 
Presbytery, the Deaconess Society and the Deaconess 
Home and individuals enrolling themselves therewith for 
the purpose of giving personal service or financial aid, was 
organized under the leadership of Mr. Richard D. Fisher, 
Secretary of the Committee of the church, to promote the 
adequate use of the Reid Memorial building by maintaining 
cooperative work, religious and social, through the Presby- 
terian Churches and the Deaconess Home and Training 
School. In the fall of 1910 this Guild started a Christian 
settlement house, a Sunday School and a kindergarten 
and the following year began mission work among the large 
Italian population in the neighborhood many of whom 
seemed to have abandoned all their previous church affilia- 
tion since coming to America. Their head worker during 
the first year was Miss Helen Bachrach of the Babcock 
Memorial Church with Miss Docherty, a senior deaconess, 
as her assistant. Miss Docherty succeeded Miss Bachrach 
as head worker after the latter's resignation on September 
1, 1911. 

On September 26, 1909, Mr. Wesley Baker of Toronto, 



114 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

Canada, a student preparing for the ministry, was engaged 
for one year as assistant to the minister and taken under 
the care of the Baltimore Presbytery; and on December 6, 
1909, Mr. Elisha H. Perkins, who had been clerk of the 
session for nearly 28 years, presented his resignation to take 
effect at the end of the year and Dr. Bernard C. Steiner was 
elected as his successor. 

On April 7, 1910, Rev. Donald Guthrie addressed com- 
munications to the session and the Presbytery of Baltimore 
resigning the pastorate of the First Church for the reasons 
that the health of his son rendered it impossible to continue 
to reside in the city and because his lameness, from which 
there then seemed no prospect of recovery, incapacitated 
him, often in a very painful way, from fulfilling his pastor- 
al duties. He asked the congregation to unite with him 
in his application to the Presbytery for a severance of the 
pastoral relation. In explanation to this it may be here 
stated that in January 1906 Dr. Guthrie had a severe attack 
of inflamatory rhuematism due to a gunshot wound received 
by him as a boy, but which apparently had been entirely 
healed. He was obliged to go to the hospital to submit to 
several surgical operations which detained him there for 
four or five months and disabled him from resuming his 
pastoral duties until September of that year. On the fol- 
lowing February 1907 he was obliged to return to the hos- 
pital and remain until the summer and was unable to 
enter the pulpit again before October 3 of that year. The 
surgical operations he underwent caused the shortening 
of one of his legs and a permanent lameness which greatly 
interfered with his powers of locomotion, and at times 
subjected him to acute physical suffering so as to render 
pastoral visitation practically impossible. 



REYNOLDS 115 

At a congregational meeting held on May 4, it was deter- 
mined to accede to Dr. Guthrie's request and commissioners 
were appointed to appear before the presbytery on behalf 
of the congregation and to give its consent to the disso- 
lution of the pastoral relation. At this meeting resolutions 
were passed expressing the deepest regret and sorrow that 
the illness of his son and his own physical disability were of 
so serious a nature as to induce his resignation, and extend- 
ing him sincere sympathy. The resolutions also testified 
to the zeal, suggestiveness and good judgment shown by 
Dr. Guthrie in directing the activities of the church and 
congregation during his pastorate and to his earnest efforts 
towards the maintenance and increase of the benevolent 
contributions. They further recalled that to his initiative 
was due the organization of the Men's Society; and that 
the Deaconess Home — an institution which gives promise 
of extensive usefulness throughout the entire Presbyterian 
Church — was established in accordance with his plans and 
under his influence; that as a member of the Presbytery of 
Baltimore he had been particularly useful and influential, 
and that as chairman of its Home Mission Committee he 
was the originator of a plan, — lately put in force — for 
increasing the salaries of pastors and aiding new and weak 
churches, which had already accomplished excellent results; 
and they also bore witness to his having taken part in 
various movements of a general character in the community 
in which he had shown himself to be a public-spirited 
citizen. They might also have well added that he was an 
able, effective and popular preacher, and possessed besides 
a personal charm of manner most attractive to all with 
whom he came in contact. 



CHAPTER VIII 

DR. BARR'S PASTORATE 1911- 

The presbytery on May 6, 1910, dissolved the pastoral 
relation and at a congregational meeting held on May 1 1 a 
committee of nine members representing the session, the 
committee and the congregation at large was appointed 
to select and recommend a minister for the church. This 
committee reported to the congregational meeting held 
February 21, 191 1 advising that a call be extended to 
Rev. Alfred H. Barr, D.D., minister of the Jefferson Ave- 
nue Presbyterian Church at Detroit, Michigan, who was 
accordingly unanimously elected and called forthwith. The 
call was accepted and he came to Baltimore and preached 
his first sermon on Sunday May 7, 191 1 and was duly 
installed by the presbytery as pastor on the following 
Thursday. 

It may be well at this point to glance at the changes 
which had taken place in existing positions during the 
thirty-one years which had elapsed since the beginning of 
Dr. Leftwich's ministry in 1879. The congregation then 
consisted mainly of members who had either personally 
or through their families been connected with the church 
for twenty, thirty or even fifty years, many of them the 
descendants of those who were in the church during the 
pastorates of its first three ministers, many lived near the 
church and were more or less allied to each other by ties of 
kinship, affinity or long continued and traditional close 

116 



REYNOLDS 117 

personal intimacy. The result of this was to give the 
congregation a degree of permanence and solidarity rarely 
found in the churches of this country and well illustrated 
by the way in which it held together during the long 
intervals of four years after the resignation of Dr. Backus, 
of two years after the resignation of Dr. Witherspoon, and 
of one year after that of Dr. Guthrie. During all these 
periods the attendance of the congregation at the regular 
services and the amount of its contributions to religious and 
benevolent objects were not materially diminished. Never- 
theless, great changes were taking place in the personnel 
of the congregation during those last thirty years, as old 
members and their families were lost by death or removal 
and new members were added many of whom came as 
comparative strangers into the congregation. The ten- 
dency of the resident part of the city to gravitate to the 
North and West, the smaller size of families among the 
well-to-do members of the community, the increase in the 
number of apartment houses in the neighborhood of the 
church and throughout the city with their constantly 
changing occupants, so unfavorable to the maintenance of 
permanent family home life among those conveniently 
accessible to the church, all contributed their part to these 
changes; so that in 1910 it appeared that out of a session 
of ten elders only one, and out of a committee of twelve 
trustees only five had been baptised in the church. In 
former days the Sunday School was composed mainly of 
the children of attendants of the church, but at the present 
day such children constitute a comparatively small minority 
of the scholars; the greater number being now generally 
gathered in from outside the congregation. Such condi- 



Il8 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

tions could not fail to impress those interested in the future 
of the church with the difficulty which it must inevitably 
meet in times to come in retaining a congregation able to 
provide from its own resources the income required to main- 
tain its services and at the same time carry on the aggressive 
Christian work imposed upon it by the responsibilities of 
its present position and its past history, and to suggest the 
imperative need of an adequate permanent endowment to 
supplement the regular contributions of the congregation. 

Deeply impressed with this need, Dr. Guthrie as early as 
1905 conceived and began to urge upon some of the leading 
members of the congregation a plan for raising one hundred 
thousand dollars as a permanent endowment fund to be in- 
vested and held by the trustees, the income thereof to be ex- 
pended for our own church purposes or for aggressive Christian 
work outside of our immediate parish, and on April of that 
year the trustees appointed Dr. Guthrie and its secretary, Mr. 
R. D. Fisher a committee to carry out this design. Three 
years later this committee reported that the projected 
endowment fund was then represented by one pledge of 
$25,000 conditioned on the subscription of $75,000 addi- 
tional, and in April 1909 the committee reported two addi- 
tional subscriptions aggregating $30,000 more, making in 
all fifty-five thousand dollars, upon the condition that the 
full amount of one hundred thousand dollars should be 
subscribed before January 1, 1912. The Endowment Fund 
Committee was thereupon authorized to add to its member- 
ship and secure subscriptions up to a total of $100,000. 
On January 10, 1910, the committee further reported an 
additional subscription of $5,000 and that they had added 
20 more members to their number. This enlarged com- 



REYNOLDS 119 

mittee soon obtained additional subscriptions which raised 
the total amount to $67,300 where it stood until about the 
first of April 191 1. The Endowment Fund Committee 
further enlarged to thirty-five members then took the mat- 
ter up with great vigor and after a thorough canvass of 
the congregation obtained before the end of May pledges 
for the entire amount required and thus completed the work 
of securing a permanent endowment fund of one hundred 
thousand dollars. This was done in the one hundred and 
fiftieth year after the presbytery of New Castle had refused 
to place in the hands of Rev. Hector Alison a call from the 
Presbyterians of Baltimore Town, because the congre- 
gation was small, without a place of worship and unable to 
support a minister. 








HISTORICAL LIST OF THE OFFICE-BEARERS OF THE 
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

FROM 1763 TO 1913 

MINISTERS 

Patrick Allison, D.D 1763 to 1802. 

James Inglts, D.D 1802 to 1819. 

William Nevins, D.D 1820 to 1835. 

John C. Backus, D.D., LL.D 1836 to 1879. 

James T. Leftwicii, D.D 1879 to 1893. 

Jere Witherspoon, D.D 1893 to 1897. 

Donald Guthrie, D.D 1899 to 1910. 

Alfred H. Barr, D.D 191 1 to 

ELDERS 

William Lyon 1781 to 

John Smith 1781 to 

William Buchanan 1781 to 

James Sterret 1781 to 

William Smith 1797 to 

William Buchanan 1797 to 

Robert Purviance 1797 to 

James Calhoun 1797 to 

Robert Gilmor 1797 to 

Davh> Stewart 1797 to 1817. 

Christopher Johnston 1797 to 1817. 

Robert Purviance 1804 to 1806. 

George Salmon 1804 to 1807. 

Ebenezer Finley 1804 to 1817. 

John McKeen 1809 to 1817. 

Stewart Brown 1809 to 1817. 

Maxwell McDowell 1814 to 181 7, 1829 to 1848. 

James Mosher 1814 to 1817, 1818 to 1846. 

Thomas Finley 1814 to 1817. 

David W. Boisseau 1814 to 1817. 

John F. Keys 1816 to 1S17. 

William W. Taylor 1818 to 1830. 

James Delacour 1819 to 1821. 

George Morris 1829 to 1846. 

David S. Courtenay 1833 to 1840. 

John N. Brown 1833 to 1852. 

William L. Gill 1833 to 1880. 

120 



REYNOLDS 121 

John Rodgers 1840 to 1861. 

David Stewart 1840 to 1847. 

John Falconer 1840 to 1847. 

William W. Spence 1848 to 

William B. Canfield 1848 to 1883. 

John H. Haskell 1861 to 1877. 

Alexander M . Carter 1861 to 1870. 

Elisha H. Perkins 1861 to 1888. 

Archibald Stirling, Jr 1861 to 1892. 

Russell Murdoch 1881 to 1904. 

Elisha H. Perkins, Jr 1881 to 

Edmund F. Witmer 1883 to 1904. 

John V. L. Graham 1883 to 1899. 

W t illiam Reynolds 1897 to 

William H. Dlx 1897 to 

David T. Haynes 1901 to 1908. 

George H. Rodgers 1901 to 1905. 

Edward H. Griffin 1901 to 

G. Frank Bally 1902 to 

A. Crawford Smith 1902 to 

Colin Grant 1907 to 191 2. 

Calvin W. Hendrick 1907 to 

Bernard C. Steiner 1907 to 

DEACONS 
James Stirling 1804 to 



John McKeen 1804 to 1809. 

John Taggart 1804 to 



Henry C. Turnbull 1840 to 1847. 

John H. Haskell 1840 to 1847. 

Moses Hyde 1840 to 1847. 

Lancaster Ould 1840 to 184; . 

Daniel Warfleld, Jr 1861 to 1870. 

Alexander F. Riach 1861 to 1870. 

J. Franklin Dlx 1861 to 1870. 

George H. Rodgers 1861 to 1901. 

John J. Thomsen 1874 to 1892. 

Russell Murdoch 1874 to 1881. 

John V. L. Graham 1874 to 1883. 

Elisha H. Perkins, Jr 1874 to 1881. 

S. W. T. Hopper 1883 to 18S7. 

William Reynolds. 1883 to 1897. 

George K. Witmer 1895 to 1901. 

William H. Dlx 1895 to 1897. 

G. Frank Baily \ 1895 to 1902. 

G. Lelper Carey 1895 to 1911. 

Douglas M. Wylie 1895 to 

Edward F. Arthurs 1901 to 1909. 

C. Braxton Dallam 1901 to 

Harry Fahnestock 1901 to 



122 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

A. Crawford Smith 1901 to 1902. 

Bernard C. Steiner 1901 to 1907. 

Murray P. Brush 1902 to 

Charles J. Keller 1902 to 

J. Evans Rodgers 1902 to 

THE COMMITTEE (or Trustees) 

John Smith 1764 to 1781. 

William Lyon 1764 to 1781. 

William Buchanan 1764 to 1781. 

William Smith 1764 to 1814. 

William Spear 1764 to 1790. 

James Sterret 1764 to 1781. 

Jonathan Plowman 1764 to 1794. 

Alexander Stenhouse 1765 to 1775. 

John Boyd 1765 to 1789. 

Robert Purviance 1765 to 1806. 

Samuel Purviance 1770 to 1787. 

John Little 1770 to 1773. 

Samuel Brown 1771 

James Calhoun 1771 to 1817. 

William Neill 1773 to 1785. 

Hugh Young 1779 to 1783. 

John Sterret 1779 to 1785. 

Davh) Stewart 1779 to 1818. 

Nathaniel Smith 1779 to 1787. 

Joseph Donaldson 1782 to 1785. 

Robert Gilmor 1782 to 1822. 

Samuel Smith 1782 to 1832. 

William Patterson 1785 to 1811. 

Christopher Johnston 1787 to 1819. 

George Brown 1787 to 1821. 

Stephen Wilson 1789 to 1794. 

John Swann 1790 to 1818. 

William Robb 1792 to 1804. 

J. A. Buchanan 1796 to 1810. 

George Salmon 1804 to 1807. 

John Stricker. . .• 1807 to 1822. 

Stewart Brown 1807 to 1832. 

James McHenry 1810 to 1816. 

Amos A. Williams 1813 to 1822. 

Alexander Fridge 1814 to 1839. 

Alexander McDonald ; 1816 to 1836. 

James Cox 1817 to 1841. 

Robert Purviance 1818 to 1825. 

James Calhoun, Jr 1818 to 1822. 

Alexander Nisbet 1819 to 1854. 

Robert Smith 1822 to 1828. 

Robert Gilmor, Jr 1822 to 1849. 

John Purviance 1822 to 1854. 



REYNOLDS 1 23 

John McIIenry 1822 

Jonathan Meredith 1822 to 1825. 

George Brown 1825 to 1859. 

Roswell L. Colt 1828 to 1836. 

John T. Barr 1828 to 1832. 

Henry Bird 1831 to 1832. 

James Armstrong 1832 to 1830. 

James Swann 1832 to 1854. 

Alexander Murdoch 1843 to I ^s6, 1858 to 1879. 

James Campbell 1835 to 1838. 

Francis T. Hyde 1836 to 1855. 

Francis Forman 1836 to 1854. 

Thomas Finley 1838 to 1846. 

Archibald Stirling 1839 to 1888. 

Christian A. Schaefer 1839 to 1847. 

Joseph Taylor 1842 to 1864. 

J. Spear Smith 1844 to 1849. 

Stephen Collins 1846 to 1858. 

William Harrison 1849 to 1870. 

John A. Armstrong 1849 to 1870. 

Alexander Turnbull 1854 to 1859. 

J. Morrison Harris 1854 to 1898. 

William Buckler 1854 to 1870. 

Alexander Winchester 1854 to 1859. 

James I. Fisher 1855 to 1858. 

Charles Findlay 1858 to 1862, 1870 to 1876. 

Hamilton Easter 1858 to 1895. 

George S. Brown 1859 to 1890. 

Sanuel Mactler 1859 to 1872. 

Andrew Redd i860 to 1896. 

Horatio L. Whttridge 1862 to 1873. 

Richard D. Fisher 1864 to 1910. 

Benjamin Deford 1870 

George W. Andrews 1870 to 1877. 

Henry James 1870 to 1873. 

George Appold 1873 to 1897. 

Joseph H. Rieman 1873 to 1897. 

Julian J. Chisolm 1877 to 1898. 

John V. L. Findlay 1877 to 1907. 

J. Spear Nicholas 1879 to 1882. 

Thomas I. Carey 1882 to 1894. 

James R. Clark 1882 to 1896. 

Albert Fahnestock 1888 to 

Robert M. Wylle 1891 to 1902. 

John McKim 1894 to 1905. 

Francis E. Waters ." 1894 to 1895, 1907 to 

John M. Hood 1896 to 1906. 

Harry F. Redd 1896 to 

Oscar F. Bresee 1896 to 1902. 

Walter S. Franklin 1898 to 1911. 



124 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE 

W. Hall Harris 1898 to 

Charles E. Rieman 1898 to 

Henry M. Hurd 1900 to 

Douglas M. Wylie 1902 to 

James Carey 1904 to 

J. H. Mason Knox 1904 to 

C. Braxton Dallam 1908 to 

Robert A. Fisher 1910 to 

William W. Spence, Jr 1912 to 

SEXTONS. 

{Some Names Missing) 

Morris 1767 to 



William Flahaven to 1772, 

Henry Cain 1784 to 



Charles Young 1805 t0 l8l °- 

John Hasselbaugh 1811 to 1814. 

John Spence 1826 to 1845. 

George W. Spence 1845 t0 l8 73- 

John B. Spence 1873 to 



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